No. 154

To Prepare Decorated Quenelles, Molded Quenelles and Pocket Quenelles

Pour Preparer les Quenelles Decorees, Moulees et a la Poche

Large decorated quenelles are used as a garnishing or to complete releve garnishings; they can be prepared with chicken, game or fish forcemeat. These quenelles are made on pieces of buttered white paper, shaping them to any desired form with a small knife while smoothing the surfaces neatly. Large quenelles are usually decorated with truffles or red beef tongue, the former being preferable. The truffle decoration can be applied on to the quenelles either before or after poaching; in the first case the decorations are slightly incrusted into the forcemeat after wetting them with egg-white; the quenelles are then plunged into boiling water with the paper they have been molded on. If the quenelles are to be decorated after poaching then the pieces must be simply applied on, but first cover, or, better still, dampen one side with soft forcemeat so that they can adhere. Quenelles are poached in salted water without allowing it to boil.

Molded.—Butter some plain, oval-shaped, quenelle molds, using slightly melted butter; decorate the bottom of the mold the same as shown in the design. If required to be stuffed, then place a layer of forcemeat on the decoration and over this any salpicon whatever (see salpicons, No. 165), and finish to fill the mold; smooth the tops, stand the molds on a baking pan, pour enough boiling water in to fill the pan to half the height of the molds and then poach in a slack oven. These molds are simply buttered, filled with forcemat, smoothed on top and poached.

Pocket Quenelles.—Mix together half as much quenelle forcemeat (No. 89), as cream forcemeat (No. 75), incorporating the latter gradually into the former, pass it all once more through a fine sieve, and fill a strong paper cornet with a third part of this forcemeat, push small quarter inch quenelles the shape of beads on to a buttered sheet, and then poach them in boiling, salted water. Color half of the remaining forcemeat with a little vegetal carmine, of a fine, light red color, and put this also into a paper cornet, and force them through on to another buttered sheet, letting these quenelles be channeled shaped, poach in salted, boiling water. Color the remainder of the forcemeat with spinach green or vegetal green to obtain a light pistachio color, and set them into a paper cornet also, and with it form oval shaped quenelles on to a buttered sheet, pour over some boiling, salted water, and let them poach for a few minutes. These quenelles are used as garnishings for soups, and for a variety of entrees.

← No. 153 To Press Meats, Galantines, Breasts, Sweetbr Elementary Methods No. 155 To Mold Quenelles with a Spoon, Either Plain →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer is describing three methods of shaping a mousseline-style forcemeat rather than one dish, so the ingredient list lives elsewhere in the book (quenelle forcemeat No. 89, cream forcemeat No. 75, salpicons No. 165). The technique still works exactly as written once the vessels and temperatures are translated.

Poach below a simmerThis is the hinge of the whole entry, and the text contradicts itself: it says to plunge the quenelles into boiling water and then that they are "poached in salted water without allowing it to boil." Follow the second instruction. Hold the water at 165-175F, barely trembling; a true boil bursts the panade-and-cream bond and the quenelles swell, then collapse into shreds.
"Slack oven" for the molded onesA slack oven is usually given as somewhere around 250-300F, though period definitions vary. The molds sit in a water bath filled halfway up their sides, which holds the forcemeat well below boiling however imprecise the oven is. Pull them when the centers reach about 160F and feel springy rather than soft.
Paper cornets and pipingA paper cornet is a rolled cone of parchment with the tip snipped off, the ancestor of the piping bag. A small disposable bag with a plain 1/4-inch tip does the same work; for the "channeled" quenelles use a small star or ribbon tip.
Buttered paper and buttered sheets"Buttered white paper" means kitchen parchment brushed with soft butter, not waxed paper. Piped quenelles are formed on the sheet and the sheet is lowered into the water; they release as the surface sets, and the paper is lifted away.
Vegetal carmine and vegetal greenNineteenth-century "vegetal" colorings were the plant- and insect-derived dyes sold to confectioners, carmine being cochineal. Any modern food coloring works, but the spinach route Ranhofer offers as an alternative is better: blanch spinach leaves, squeeze dry, pound to a paste and beat a spoonful into the forcemeat for a true pistachio tone.
Red beef tongueThis means brine-cured (pickled) tongue, whose nitrite-set color reads bright against pale forcemeat. Sliced cured tongue from a deli counter cuts the same decorative shapes; the color of fresh braised tongue is too gray to register.
Truffle decorationRanhofer's cutouts come from a whole black truffle sliced thin. Where that is out of reach, thin discs of black trumpet mushroom rehydrated and pressed flat, or firm black olive paste piped through a fine tip, give a comparable graphic effect. Fix decorations before poaching with a brush of egg white, or after poaching with a smear of raw forcemeat, as directed.
Size and yieldThe pocket quenelles are quarter-inch beads used as a garnish for soups and entrees. The large decorated quenelles are a garnish for a releve, so plan one or two per serving.

A Little History

Quenelle comes into French from the Alsatian and German Knodel, dumpling, and the technique is generally traced to Lyon, where quenelles de brochet made with pike, panade and butter became a regional emblem. By the time Charles Ranhofer set down The Epicurean in 1894 after decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, the quenelle had been absorbed into the classical repertoire as a piece of pure kitchen carpentry: a neutral, pale, sievable paste whose value lay in taking any shape a cook could impose on it. That is why this entry sits among the Elementary Methods rather than the recipes proper, and why so much of it is about paper, molds and truffle cutouts.