No. 84
Godiveau of Rabbit or Other Game
Godiveau de Lapereau ou Autres Gibiers
This is a forcemeat formula, not a finished dish, and it is deliberately terse: Ranhofer expects you to read it alongside No. 85, where the pounding, moistening and testing are spelled out. Everything below assumes you are making quenelles, a pie lining or a stuffing from it.
- Keep it cold, and that is the whole trickA godiveau is an emulsion of lean meat, hard fat and water. If the mixture warms much above 50F while you work it, the suet smears and the poached quenelles break and weep. Chill the meat, the fat, the bowl and the blade, and work in short bursts.
- What "moisten and finish" meansIn No. 85 the pounded meat and suet are worked with the eggs, then the panada, then iced water (Ranhofer's godiveau is the older style built on ice) until the paste is smooth and light, and rested cold before shaping. Check No. 85 for the exact order and timings.
- Beef kidney suetRaw kidney suet, skin and membrane stripped, is the fat this is built on: it is harder and drier than back fat, which is why the paste holds. Most supermarkets do not carry it; a butcher will. Shredded packaged suet with added flour is not the same product. Firm pork fatback is the usual modern substitute, giving a softer, milder result.
- Pâte à choux panadaPâte à choux panada -- Not a bread or flour panada. No. 121 is Ranhofer's choux-paste panada, cooked with butter and flour and cooled completely before use; check that entry for its exact make-up. Four ounces to two pounds of meat and fat is a light binding by weight, about 12 percent.
- Spiced saltRanhofer's No. 168 is a dry blend of salt with pepper and mixed spices, kept made up; see that entry for the proportions. One ounce to two pounds of meat and fat is roughly 3 percent by weight, most of it salt, which is high-seasoned by modern taste but correct for a forcemeat that will be poached in water. If you are using ordinary salt plus your own spices, scale down and test.
- Sinew is not optionalRabbit and most game carry silverskin along the loin and through the legs. Anything you do not remove will show up as gristle in the finished quenelle, and a food processor will not break it down. A 2.5 to 3 lb rabbit, fully boned and trimmed, yields roughly a pound to a pound and a half of usable meat.
- Test before you commitPoach a teaspoon of the paste in barely simmering salted water, around 175F, for two or three minutes. If it falls apart, work in a little more egg or panada; if it is rubbery and tight, more iced water. Adjust seasoning at this stage, not after shaping.
- YieldClose to 5 lb of forcemeat once the eggs and panada are counted in, before any iced water: a large batch, enough for quenelles to garnish soup or ragout for a crowd, or to line and stuff a raised game pie. The paste keeps a day or two under refrigeration; it also freezes well before poaching.
The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's account of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry sits in the Elementary Methods section — the toolkit of pastes, stocks and panadas from which the showpiece dishes are assembled. Godiveau is an old French kitchen word for a pounded forcemeat bound with fat and, characteristically, with kidney suet rather than pork fat; the term is documented in French cookery well before Carême, and the veal version with iced water was long regarded as the benchmark of a cook's hand. Substituting rabbit or other game for the veal is the frugal, seasonal variant: the trimmings and shoulders left after the saddles and legs went to the dining room could be pounded down for quenelles, pie linings and stuffings. That such a formula is given as a bare list of proportions, with the method borrowed from the entry after it, tells you how the book was meant to be used — by professionals who already knew how to pound a forcemeat and needed only the ratio.