No. 87

Game Forcemeat for Mousseline

Farce de Gibier pour Mousselines

Take one pound of the breast-meat of some raw game suppressing the skin and nerves, pound and pass it through a sieve. Place this puree in a tin vessel and mix in one egg-white slowly working it gradually so that it attains body, then incorporate, always slowly, two or three gills of raw cream without once ceasing to mix the preparation. When mellow add four or five tablespoonfuls of puree of cooked foies gras, pounded and pressed through a sieve, season, and when very smooth poach a small piece in a small timbale in a bain-marie so to judge of its consistency; it must be firm, although mellow; if found necessary add a few egg-yolks.

← No. 86 Chicken Forcemeat for Mousseline Elementary Methods No. 88 Salmon Forcemeat for Mousseline →

For the Modern Kitchen

A cream-bound mousseline farce of the classic French kind, meant to be piped or moulded into quenelles, timbales and mousselines. Everything hinges on temperature: cold meat, cold cream, cold bowl, or the emulsion breaks and weeps fat when poached.

Gills of creamA gill is half a cup, so two or three gills is 1 to 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream for the pound of meat. Add it in stages and stop when the farce is soft but still holds a shape on the spoon; lean wild game takes more cream than farmed.
"Tin vessel"Ranhofer means a tinned metal bowl, the standard kitchen vessel of the period. Use a stainless bowl set over ice, and chill the puree thoroughly between stages.
Suppressing the skin and nervesStrip skin, silverskin and every trace of tendon and sinew before pounding. Sinew will not break down and shows up as threads that clog the sieve and ruin the texture.
Mortar or machineA food processor replaces the pounding: work the diced cold meat with the egg white to a paste, then push through a drum sieve or fine tamis before adding cream. Skipping the sieve is the usual reason a mousseline is grainy rather than silken.
Foies gras pureeFour or five tablespoons of sieved cooked foie gras is a richness and a binder both. Mousse de foie gras or a good pâté de foie gras terrine, sieved, stands in for it; the farce works without it, but plainer.
SeasoningThe original leaves it to the cook. Reckon on about 1 1/2 teaspoons fine salt per pound of meat, white pepper, and a scrape of nutmeg or a pinch of cayenne for game; salt also helps the proteins bind the cream.
The test quenelleDo not skip it. Poach a spoonful in a small mould in a bain-marie of water held around 170F until just set through, then taste and feel it. If it is loose or breaks, whisk in a yolk; if it is tight and rubbery, more cream.
Poaching the finished mousselinesWater bath at 165 to 175F, never simmering. A boiling bath swells and splits the farce. Cook to about 150F at the centre and rest briefly before turning out.
Which game, and yieldPheasant, partridge, grouse, wild or farmed duck breast all suit it. A pound of breast plus cream gives roughly 1 3/4 lb of farce, enough for six to eight individual mousselines or about two dozen quenelles as a garnish.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's summary of some thirty years running the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry sits in the elementary methods, the section of building blocks a cook was expected to master before touching the recipes proper. The farce mousseline represents a step away from the older French quenelle, which was bound with a panada and consequently heavier; here egg white and raw cream alone do the work, and the name is conventionally explained by mousseline -- muslin -- as a byword for lightness. Ranhofer gives parallel versions for chicken (No. 86) and salmon (No. 88), which shows how the method was taught: one technique, the protein swapped out, the proportions adjusted by the test quenelle rather than by rule. The foie gras addition is characteristic of the restaurant's ambitions, and of a period when American game -- grouse, plover, wild duck -- was still sold openly in the markets.