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Veal Forcemeat
Chop one pound of beef suet, and half that quantity of lean veal, and mix them together. Season the mixture with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg; place it in a mortar and pound, then stir in four eggs that have been beaten with a little water and one tablespoonful of chopped parsley. When well mixed, the forcemeat is ready for use.
Veal Forcemeat (for Balls or Stuffing).
Take some lean veal, chop it finely and put it into a mortar with one-third its quantity of either fine-shredded suet or butter and the same of stale breadcrumbs, then put it in a basin with a little milk and when thoroughly soaked take out and squeeze dry; pound well, adding a little grated nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste. Beat up the yolks of two eggs, pour it over the mixture to bind it, make a firm paste and use it either made into balls and fried or as stuffing.
Veal Forcemeat Balls (for Mock Turtle Soup).
Take the crumb of two or three French rolls, put it into a saucepan with sufficient rich gravy to cover it, place the pan by the side of the fire and let it boil gently until quite done. Remove it, squeeze out all the liquor, put it into another saucepan over the fire and stir it until quite dry; then add the yolks of two eggs, and allow it to cool. Put one-fourth pound of lean veal into a mortar, pound it and add the breadcrumb mixture and three or four ounces of butter. Season it to taste with grated nutmeg salt, pepper, cayenne and mace, and, if liked, a little well-pounded lean ham. Roll the paste into balls and boil for twelve minutes before putting into mock turtle soup.
Three related preparations for forcemeat, the bound meat paste used as stuffing, as quenelle-style balls, or as garnish for soup. All three assume a marble mortar and a strong arm; a food processor does the work in under a minute.
- Mortar means processorThe pounding step exists to break the muscle fibre down to a smooth paste that will bind. A food processor achieves the same thing, but pulse rather than run it — overworked veal with warm suet turns greasy and splits.
- Keep everything coldThe single instruction that matters. Suet, veal, eggs and bowl should all be refrigerator-cold, or the fat smears instead of emulsifying and the balls fall apart in the poaching liquid.
- Beef suetRaw kidney fat, sold by butchers and not the same as the shredded, floured suet in a supermarket box. Fresh suet is preferable; the boxed product contains flour and will change the texture. The second recipe permits butter instead, which is easier to find and less assertive.
- Quantities in the first versionOne pound of suet to half a pound of veal is a very high fat ratio by modern taste — this is a stuffing intended to baste a dry roast from the inside. For balls or eating on its own, the second recipe's one-third fat is the sounder proportion.
- PanadeThe soaked-and-squeezed breadcrumbs of the second recipe, and the roll crumb cooked in gravy of the third, are both a panade: starch that holds moisture and keeps the forcemeat tender. Stale bread, crusts removed, is essential; fresh bread turns to paste.
- French rollsSmall, lean white rolls with a thin crust — a plain bread roll or a length of baguette crumb is the modern equivalent. "Sufficient rich gravy" means enough well-flavoured brown stock to submerge the crumb.
- By the side of the fireOn a coal range this was the cooler zone. Read it as low heat on the smallest burner, at a bare simmer.
- Testing before you commitPoach one small ball in simmering water before shaping the rest. That tells you whether the seasoning is right and whether the mixture holds; nutmeg and mace both read stronger once cooked.
- Twelve minutes and yieldTwelve minutes -- Twelve minutes at a gentle simmer suits walnut-sized balls; a hard boil will burst them.
Forcemeat comes from the French farce, filling — the same root as, by a separate route, the theatrical farce. By Oscar Tschirky's day at the Waldorf, a kitchen would keep several standing forcemeats as building blocks: coarse ones for stuffing joints and poultry, fine veal ones for quenelles, garnish balls and the linings of raised pies. The third variation here points to mock turtle soup, a nineteenth-century standby that used a calf's head to imitate the gelatinous texture of green turtle, then the grandest of soups; the little veal balls stood in for the fragments of turtle meat. Veal was a natural choice for this work because it is pale, mild and comparatively high in the connective tissue that helps a pounded paste hold together — the same logic that still governs classic quenelles and pâtés today.