No. 76

Cream Forcemeat of Fish

Farce de Poisson a la Creme

Take one pound of boned and skinned bass or any other firm fish; pound and rub it through a fine sieve; return it to the mortar, season with an ounce of salt, some nutmeg and red pepper and mix in while still stirring with a whip, two egg-whites and from six to eight gills of cream, measured before whipping; pass the whole through a very fine sieve. Try a small piece in order to rectify if not correct, and if found to be too firm add more cream, and if too soft some more egg-whites.

← No. 75 Chicken or Game Cream Forcemeat Elementary Methods No. 77 Baked Fish Forcemeat →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a mousseline forcemeat — the base for quenelles, timbales, fish puddings and the lining of moulds — and it lives or dies by temperature. Two of Ranhofer's quantities also need scrutiny before you commit a pound of good fish.

Cold is the whole trickThe fish, the cream, the bowl and the blade all need to be thoroughly chilled, and the cream goes in gradually. If the mixture warms much above 40F the emulsion breaks and the cooked forcemeat weeps butterfat and turns grainy.
The salt is out of proportionAn ounce of salt is about 28g, roughly 6 percent of the weight of the fish — around three times what a modern palate accepts. Season at 1.5 to 2 percent (about 1 to 1.5 teaspoons of fine salt per pound of fish) and adjust after the test quenelle.
Gills, and how much cream that isA gill is half a cup, so six to eight gills is three to four cups of cream to one pound of fish. Current practice for a mousseline is closer to one to one and a half cups per pound. Start with a cup, work up, and treat the upper figure with suspicion rather than aiming for it.
"Measured before whipping"Ranhofer means the cream is measured cold as liquid, not by volume after aeration, which changes the quantity considerably. Note that the recipe has it worked in with a whip rather than specifying that it be whipped separately and folded.
Mortar and sieveA food processor does the pounding in under a minute; the tammy sieve afterwards is what removes sinew and any missed pin bones and gives the texture its point. Push the purée through a fine drum sieve or a chinois with a plastic scraper — do not skip it.
The test piecePoach a teaspoon of the mixture in barely simmering salted water for three or four minutes, never boiling, and taste it cold-ish. Too firm and rubbery, add cream; too soft and it collapses, add white. This step is the recipe's real instruction.
Egg whitesWeigh if you are scaling: two large whites, roughly 60 to 70g, per pound of fish.
Fish choiceRanhofer says bass or any other firm fish; pike, sole, halibut, haddock or hake all work, and oily fish are generally avoided. Buy 1 lb of trimmed, skinless, boneless flesh rather than 1 lb whole.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer spent about three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is his attempt to set down the whole of that kitchen's practice in numbered order. This recipe sits in the Elementary Methods section: a cream forcemeat is not a dish but a component, and the numbers on either side of it — chicken and game cream forcemeat, baked fish forcemeat — show it being taught as a family of techniques rather than a single preparation. The method belongs to the French quenelle tradition; over the course of the nineteenth century the older panada-bound forcemeats were increasingly joined by lighter mixtures held together by egg white and cream alone, and quenelles de brochet, made this way with pike, remained the type specimen. The mortar and the fine sieve were the tools available for the purpose, and the labour involved is a fair indication of how many hands a restaurant kitchen of the 1890s had at its disposal.