No. 74

Cream Chicken Forcemeat with Bechamel and Mushroom Puree

Farce de Volaille a la Creme a la Bechamel et Puree de Champignons

For this forcemeat obtain one pound of chicken or game meat without any nerves or skin, pass this twice through the machine (Fig. 47), or else chop it up and pound to pulp; season with salt, red pepper and nutmeg, and mix in with one egg-white and two gills of cream bechamel (No. 411), and two gills of mushroom puree. For the puree of mushrooms, chop up one pound of peeled fresh mushrooms, cook them in butter till they have rendered all their moisture, then season and pound them with a third of their quantity of good bechamel reduced and thickened. When cold mix the mushrooms in gradually with the forcemeat in the mortar, rub all through a fine sieve, and try it to see whether it be too solid, if so, add some sweet cream by working it in with a whip, so as to have it consistent and smooth.

← No. 73 Cooked and Raw Game or Chicken Forcemeat for Elementary Methods No. 75 Chicken or Game Cream Forcemeat →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer is describing a panada-free cream forcemeat, the base for quenelles, mousselines and timbale linings. It behaves like a modern mousseline: cold protein, cold cream, and no shortcuts on temperature.

The gillA US gill is 4 fl oz, half a cup. Two gills of cream bechamel and two gills of mushroom puree are one cup each, added to one pound of meat.
Keep everything coldThis is the hinge. The meat, the bowl, the blade and the cream should all be refrigerator-cold, and the puree and bechamel fully chilled before they go in, as Ranhofer specifies. If the mixture is allowed to warm while it is being worked, the emulsion can break and the finished quenelles turn grainy.
The machine at Fig. 47A meat grinder. A food processor does the same work in less time: pulse the diced raw meat to a paste, add the egg white, then the cold bechamel and mushroom puree in stages, stopping to scrape down.
Bechamel No. 411Ranhofer's cream bechamel, cross-referenced from elsewhere in the book. For the mushroom puree he calls for bechamel 'reduced and thickened', i.e. stiffer than the sauce used in the forcemeat itself, because the mushrooms are already carrying moisture.
Cooking out the mushroomsA pound of mushrooms sweated in butter until they have given up all their liquid will reduce to a fraction of its raw bulk, and the pan should end up dry without colouring. Any water left in the mushrooms goes straight into the forcemeat and slackens it.
Red pepperIn this book that means cayenne, not paprika and not a fresh chile. Use it sparingly; the point is to sharpen the cream, not to be tasted as heat.
The sieveRubbing the finished mixture through a fine drum sieve or tamis is what makes the texture, removing the sinew and grit the grinder left behind. A very fine mesh strainer and a plastic scraper will do it, and it is worth the twenty minutes.
Testing the consistencyRather than judging by eye, poach a teaspoonful in barely simmering salted water for a few minutes and taste it. Too firm or rubbery, whip in more cold cream a spoonful at a time; too soft to hold shape, chill the mass and work in a little more sieved meat.
Yield and useAbout two pounds of forcemeat, enough for roughly thirty small quenelles or to line a large timbale mould. It is a component, not a finished dish, and must be poached or baked through before serving.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the house's working manual, arranged so that a numbered elementary preparation like this one could be cross-referenced from dozens of finished dishes. Farce is simply the French for stuffing or forcemeat, from the Latin farcire, to stuff, and the same root gives English its farce, a comic filler between acts. What distinguishes a farce a la creme from the older bread- or panada-bound forcemeats is that the binding is done by protein and fat alone: egg white and cream, worked cold in a mortar, producing the light, pale mousseline texture that nineteenth-century French kitchens prized for quenelles and moulded entrees. The mushroom puree here is doing double duty as flavour and as body, and its presence marks this as a garnish forcemeat for a finished dish rather than a plain stuffing. The mention of a grinding machine at Fig. 47 is a small period detail in itself: by the 1890s the mechanical mincer had reached professional American kitchens, and Ranhofer offers it as an alternative to the mortar without much ceremony.