Home › The Waldorf Kitchen › Potato Quenelles
Potato Quenelles
Mash one pound of dry floury potatoes while they are still hot, mix with them two ounces of butter, a seasoning of salt and black pepper, three tablespoonfuls of cream, a little chopped parsley, a small quantity of finely-minced ham, and the beaten yolks of four eggs; when well mixed, beat in the thoroughly whisked whites of four eggs, and shape the preparation into quenelles, with two teaspoons, then drop them into boiling butter, and fry for five minutes. Drain them on paper, and serve on a napkin quite hot.
A fried potato dumpling in the French manner, close kin to pommes dauphine. The whole thing hinges on the potatoes being dry and worked while hot, and on the fat being hot enough to set the outside before the egg-lightened mixture slackens.
- The potatoes"Dry floury" means russets or another baking potato, baked or boiled in the skin and riced or mashed the moment they are drained, while steam is still escaping. Waxy potatoes or a food processor give a gluey paste that will not hold a quenelle shape.
- Quantities in modern termsOne pound of potatoes is about two medium russets; two ounces of butter is 4 tablespoons; three tablespoons of cream is a quarter cup less a tablespoon. The "small quantity" of ham is a judgment call — an ounce or two, minced fine, is enough to flavor without weighing the mixture down.
- "Boiling butter"This means frying in hot fat, not simmering; the recipe does not say how deep the fat should be. Whole butter scorches well below frying temperature, so use clarified butter or ghee, or half clarified butter and half neutral oil, at 350–360F. Milk solids left in the pan will blacken and taint the batch.
- Frying timeThe original gives five minutes for dumplings shaped with two teaspoons. Small quenelles in hot fat may colour sooner, so judge by eye rather than the clock: they are done when deep gold and floating high, turning once. Fry one alone first: if it disintegrates, the mixture needs chilling or a spoonful of flour.
- Shaping with two teaspoonsThe classic method — scoop with one wet spoon, smooth and release with the second, forming a tapered oval. Dip the spoons in hot water between quenelles. Chilling the mixture 20–30 minutes after folding in the whites makes it far easier to handle, though it costs a little lift.
- The whitesFold, do not beat, the whisked whites in, despite the original's "beat in." The air is what keeps the interiors light; overworking gives a dense, heavy dumpling.
- Yield and serviceAbout 18 to 20 quenelles, enough for four as a side or a light first course. "Serve on a napkin" is period practice: a folded linen napkin on the platter absorbed frying fat, which paper towels now do more discreetly. Serve immediately, as they deflate within minutes.
Oscar Tschirky, maître d'hôtel of the Waldorf and then the Waldorf-Astoria, put his name to The Cook Book by "Oscar" of the Waldorf in 1896, a vast compendium reflecting the French-trained hotel kitchens of the Gilded Age. A quenelle in classical French cookery is a forcemeat dumpling — usually veal, pike or chicken — poached in stock and shaped between two spoons, and the word is generally traced to the German Knödel. Here the technique is borrowed but the substance is potato and egg, a fried variant in the family that includes pommes dauphine; the fleck of ham is the hotel cook's way of making a starchy garnish taste of something. That the shaping method, not the filling, gives the dish its name says a good deal about how firmly French vocabulary governed American hotel menus at the close of the nineteenth century.