No. 155

To Mold Quenelles with a Spoon, Either Plain, Filled or Rolled in Flour

Pour Mouler les Quenelles a la Cuillere, Simples, Fourrees ou Roulees a la Farine

Select two common, large and very thin iron soup spoons, put one of these into a small panful of hot water, and taking the other in the left hand fill the hollow center with the forcemeat, smooth the top with the blade of a small knife dipped in tepid water, arranging it in such a manner that there is as much forcemeat above as below the level of the spoon, then remove the quenelles buttered sauteing pan, without turning it over, so that the same side is on top. If the quenelles are wanted filled, prepare a montglas composed of mushrooms, tongue, truffles or foies-gras; thicken it with some very compact reduced, good brown sauce, so that when cold the preparation can be divided into small parts, and rolled into olive shaped pieces in the hand; in this case, when the spoon is filled with forcemeat, make a small hole with the finger on the surface so as to insert the montglas, salpicon or puree, cover over with more forcemeat, being careful that it is the same thickness all over the filling, smooth it down nicely, and remove the quenelle with the hot spoon to slip it on to the bottom of a buttered sauteing pan without turning it over. Generally for one pound it will take eight large soup-spoonfuls, or sixteen dessert-spoons, or thirty-two tea-spoons, or sixty-four coffee-spoons. Poach these quenelles by pouring hot water into the sauteing pan beside the quenelles, and set the pan on the fire to bring it to boiling point; at the first boil, move it on one side, so that the water only simmers for six to fourteen minutes, according to their size. Lift the quenelles with a skimmer, and drain them on a cloth before using them.

To Prepare Quenelles Rolled in Flour.—Divide some game, chicken or fish forcemeat into pieces; roll each one on a flour dredged table into strings three-quarters of an inch in diameter; cut these into pieces three-quarters of an inch long; roll them on the table to give each one the shape of an olive or small egg half an inch in thickness and one inch in length. Larger ones can be made of Godiveau an inch and three-quarters long by five-eights in thickness. Poach the quenelles in boiling water with salt added to it. The Godiveau quenelles are poached by ranging them at equal distances on a baking tin covered with a sheet of paper, then placing it in a very slack oven.

← No. 154 To Prepare Decorated Quenelles, Molded Quene Elementary Methods No. 156 To Raise, Pare and Poach Breasts of Poultry →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer is describing the classic two-spoon quenelle, still the standard method in professional kitchens. The recipe assumes you already have a finished forcemeat from an earlier entry; what follows is only the shaping and poaching.

The hinge: never let the water boilThe hinge: hold the poach at a bare simmer -- Ranhofer brings the pan just to the first boil, then moves it to one side so the water only simmers, six to fourteen minutes according to size. Forcemeat held at a rolling boil can swell, rupture and shed its fat, leaving a dry, curdled dumpling.
Why the second spoon sits in hot waterRanhofer keeps one of the two spoons in a small panful of hot water; the warm spoon releases the quenelle cleanly, without dragging or deforming it.
Pour the water beside them, not overThe buttered pan holds the quenelles in place; water poured directly onto them will wash the surface and break the smooth dome. Add it at the edge of the pan until they float free.
Montglas and salpiconA montglas is a garnish of mushrooms, tongue, truffle or foie gras cut small and bound with a heavily reduced brown sauce; a salpicon is the same idea, diced. The binding must be stiff enough to hold an olive shape when cold, or it will burst the quenelle in the poach.
GodiveauRanhofer's godiveau is a veal forcemeat bound with kidney suet and eggs, firmer than a chicken or fish farce. Note that he still describes the oven treatment as poaching: the quenelles are ranged at equal distances on a papered baking tin and set in a very slack oven rather than in water.
"A very slack oven"A very low oven in period usage; Ranhofer gives no temperature. The godiveau quenelles set gently on papered tins rather than in liquid.
YieldOne pound of forcemeat gives 8 large soup-spoon quenelles, 16 dessert-spoon, 32 teaspoon or 64 coffee-spoon, as Ranhofer states.
Timing by sizeSix minutes for coffee- and teaspoon quenelles, up to fourteen for the largest. Poach one test quenelle first: it should be springy and set through with no wet paste at the center, and it should float.
Keep everything cold until it goes inThe forcemeat, the bowl and your hands. A farce that warms while you shape it will separate in the water regardless of how carefully you poach.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer put this in the Elementary Methods section of The Epicurean (1894), the compendium of his thirty-odd years running the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York, and its placement there is the point: a quenelle was not a special-occasion dish but a basic unit of the repertoire, turned out by the hundred as soup garnish, as a border for entrées, as the filling of a vol-au-vent. The word is generally traced to the German Knödel, dumpling, entering French cooking through Alsace and Lorraine, and by the nineteenth century the pounded, sieved, cream-enriched forcemeat had become one of the tests of a competent saucier. Godiveau, the veal-and-suet version Ranhofer mentions, is the older and coarser form; the delicate fish and poultry farces belong to the refinement of the trade in the 1800s, when fine sieves and long pounding in a marble mortar made a smooth quenelle possible. The instruction to count spoonfuls per pound is a working chef's note, meant for a brigade portioning to a fixed number of covers rather than a home cook.