No. 83

Godiveau of Pike

Godiveau de Brochet

A pound of skinless and boneless pike meat, chopped and pounded fine; two pounds of dry and brittle beef kidney suet free of fat and nerves, also chopped up fine; mix the two together, chop once more and season with an ounce of spiced salt; pound to a pulp to obtain a fine paste, and incorporate into it gradually, one pound and a half of cream panada (No. 120), and afterward twelve beaten up egg-whites. Try the forcemeat to see whether it be too hard, if so add some cream, and if too soft, more egg-whites.

← No. 82 Chicken Godiveau Elementary Methods No. 84 Godiveau of Rabbit or Other Game →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a component, not a finished dish: a raw forcemeat meant to be shaped into quenelles or used as a stuffing and then poached or baked. Everything about it depends on temperature.

Keep it cold, alwaysSuet and cream emulsions break the moment they warm. Chill the fish, the suet, the panada and the bowl, and work in short bursts; if the paste starts to look greasy or separated, refrigerate it before going on.
Spiced saltRanhofer gives a spiced salt elsewhere in the book, fine salt blended with pepper and mixed spices. An ounce over three pounds of fish and suet is about two percent by weight, though since spiced salt is a blend the actual salt content is lower. The recipe itself does not say how the forcemeat will be cooked.
Cream panadaThe panada cross-referenced here is a thick cooked paste of bread or flour with cream, cooled until stiff. It is the binder, and the proportions of this recipe depend on it.
Beef kidney suet"Dry and brittle" is the test for freshness. Ask a butcher for kidney suet rather than buying boxed shredded suet, which is often flour-coated and sometimes vegetable fat. Strip the membranes and any soft fat as directed, or the paste will be stringy.
Pounding, and the modern substituteA food processor does quickly what a mortar did slowly, but it also heats the mixture. Process the suet alone first, then add the fish, then the panada, pulsing and scraping, and stop while the bowl is still cold.
Pike bonesPike carries fine Y-shaped intermuscular bones that are easy to miss and unpleasant in a smooth paste. Work the fillets over with your fingers, and pass the pounded flesh through a sieve if you want certainty. Walleye, whiting or cod fillet all behave similarly if pike is unavailable.
The poach testBefore committing the batch, drop a teaspoon of forcemeat into barely simmering salted water and cook it through. That is the only way to judge the hardness Ranhofer describes, and it also lets you check the seasoning, which you cannot taste raw.
Egg whitesTwelve whites is roughly 1 1/2 cups. Add them in stages and stop when the paste is right; eggs of the period may have run smaller than today's large, so you may need fewer.
YieldThe finished quantity is close to five pounds of forcemeat, enough for fifty or more quenelles. Halve or quarter it for a domestic kitchen; it keeps a day covered and chilled, and shaped quenelles freeze well raw.

A Little History

Godiveau is the old French kitchen word for a pounded forcemeat bound with suet and panada, and pike was its classic fish version: the flesh is lean and rich in the soluble proteins that set a paste firm, and quenelles de brochet became the showpiece of Lyonnais cooking. Charles Ranhofer, who ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, filed this among his "Elementary Methods" precisely because it was infrastructure. The heavy proportion of suet to fish, two to one here, marks it as a nineteenth-century professional formula; twentieth-century cooks progressively replaced the suet with cream and butter, which is why modern quenelles are lighter.