No. 2336

Spring Turkey Quenelles a la Providence

Quenelles de Dindonneau a la Providence

Decorate some oval-shaped molds (Fig. 75) with red tongue, truffles and pistachios; fill them half full with some very mellow turkey quenelle forcemeat (No. 89), and lay in the center a royal salpicon (No. 751); cover with more forcemeat and poach them in a slow oven; unmold and dress them crown-shaped, filling the well with shrimps rolled in a little chicken glaze (No. 398), lemon juice and lobster butter (No. 580). Dress over a printaniere sauce (No. 546) and serve a separate sauce-boat of the same sauce.

← No. 2335 Quenelles of Salmon—Stuffed Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2337 Woodcock Quenelles a la d'Artois →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer wrote for a brigade with a numbered reference for every component, so this reads as a list of cross-references rather than a recipe. Below is what each one means and where the dish can actually go wrong.

The hinge: forcemeat texture"Very mellow" is Ranhofer's own phrase for a forcemeat soft enough to just hold a shape but no firmer. Poach a teaspoon of it in simmering water before you fill a single mold; if it is rubbery, work in more cream, and if it collapses, add a little more panada or egg white.
Spring turkeyDindonneau is a young turkey poult, a notably smaller and younger bird than a mature turkey. Breast and thigh meat from any modern turkey works; the point of the young bird was pale, tender flesh that pounded to a smooth paste.
"Poach in a slow oven"A slow oven is conventionally read as somewhere around 300F; Ranhofer gives no temperature. Molds of this kind are normally set in a water bath so that the oven only holds gentle, even heat, though this recipe does not say so. Small oval molds need roughly 15-20 minutes; the quenelle is done when it is set to the center and just springs back, not when it browns.
Decorating the moldsButter the molds, chill them, then press thin cut shapes of cooked red tongue, truffle and blanched pistachio against the sides. Chill again before adding forcemeat or the design shifts and you lose the pattern on unmolding.
Salpicon and glazeA royal salpicon is a fine dice — white meat, truffle and mushroom in the usual versions — bound in a thick sauce and cooled until stiff so that it holds as a core; No. 751 gives Ranhofer's own composition. Chicken glaze is stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold — a spoonful of commercial demi-glace or your own reduced stock does the same job.
Lobster butterShells pounded with butter, warmed, then strained and chilled. It is used here off the heat, purely for color and perfume; add it to the shrimp after they come off the stove or it separates.
Printanière saucePrintanière signals spring vegetables; the period sauce is a white, velouté-based one given its character by young vegetables such as carrot, turnip, peas and green beans, added late so they keep their color. No. 546 gives Ranhofer's own version.
Yield and serviceFigure two small quenelles per person as a first course, so eight to ten molds serves four or five. They must be dressed and sauced immediately; held warm they weep and the crown collapses.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows the house style at its most elaborate: a fine forcemeat, a stuffed core, a decorated mold and two sauces for a dish that arrives as a few small ovals. The word quenelle is generally traced to the German Knödel, dumpling, but by the nineteenth century French kitchens had refined it into pounded meat or fish lightened with panada and cream — a preparation that existed largely to demonstrate a cook's control. Garnish names like à la Providence worked as shorthand within the profession; what, if anything, this one referred to is not recorded here. The dish also reflects the period's taste for pale, molded, reassembled food, where the labor is invisible and the point is that nothing looks like the animal it came from.