No. 673

Griboulette Garnishing

Garniture de Griboulettes

Have ten ounces of chopped raw beef free of nerves, half a pound of kidney suet, the skin and fibers suppressed; chop each of these separately, then mix in with them five ounces of fresh breadcrumbs, three tablespoonfuls of onions, chopped and fried in butter, one tablespoonful of chopped parsley, salt, and pepper. Divide this preparation into flat balls, flatten them down to an inch and a half in diameter, dip them in beaten egg, then in the bread-crumbs and fry in clarified butter until a fine color.

← No. 672 Godard Garnishing Garnishings No. 674 Grimod Garnishing →

For the Modern Kitchen

A garnish of small fried beef-and-suet cakes, meant to be set around a roast or braised joint rather than served alone. The proportions are the point: half as much suet as beef, and a generous amount of bread, which makes a cake that stays juicy and slices cleanly.

The hinge: chop separately, then combineRanhofer is specific that the beef and the suet are chopped apart from each other. Suet worked into beef in a food processor smears and the fat renders out in the pan; chop or grind each on its own, then fold together by hand with the bread and seasoning.
Kidney suetRaw beef fat from around the kidneys, sold by butchers on request and often frozen in packets. The dried, floured shredded suet sold for puddings is not the same thing and will not work here. Beef fat trimmings will substitute, though the texture is coarser.
Weights in modern termsTen ounces beef, eight ounces suet, five ounces fresh breadcrumbs. The crumbs should be soft crumbs from a day-old loaf, weighed rather than measured by volume, since five ounces of fresh crumb is a very large bowlful.
OnionsThree tablespoons chopped onion, softened in butter until pale gold and cooled before it goes into the mixture; Ranhofer does not say whether the measure is taken before or after frying. Warm onion begins to melt the suet.
BindingThere is no egg in the body of the mixture, only in the coating, so the cakes hold together on moisture and fat alone. Press them firmly and chill them for half an hour before breading; a loose mix will break up in the pan.
Size and yieldSize -- Flattened to an inch and a half across, as Ranhofer directs; he gives no thickness, and the yield depends entirely on how thick the cakes are made.
Clarified butterUsed because whole butter burns before the cakes are cooked through. Clarify your own or use ghee, and keep the pan at a steady medium heat so the crumb colors at the same rate the interior cooks.
DonenessThese are chopped raw beef, so cook them through rather than to a pink center: about four minutes a side, to an internal 160F. A fine color on the crumb and a cooked interior arrive at roughly the same moment at moderate heat.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) was Charles Ranhofer's summation of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its garnishing chapter is a catalogue of named accompaniments — Godard, Grimod, Griboulette — arranged alphabetically as a working reference rather than a book to read through. What the recipe itself represents is older and plainer: a forcemeat of chopped beef stretched with suet and bread, the same economy that produces the sausage, the faggot and the rissole across northern Europe.