No. 92

Lamb or Veal Quenelle Forcemeat

Farce a Quenelle d'Agneau ou de Veau

Procure one pound of either lean fillet, or kernel of lamb or veal; ten ounces of cooked calf's udder; four egg-yolks, two whole eggs, ten ounces of panada with flour (No. 121), three quarters of an ounce of salt, nutmeg and red pepper; suppress the fat and skin from the meat, cut it into half inch squares, put this twice through the machine (Fig. 47), then pound the meat, and when converted into a paste rub it forcibly through a round sieve (Fig. 142), or any other one not too fine; take it out of the mortar, lay in the panada, pound it fine, add to it the calf's udder, a little at the time, then the seasonings and strained meat, also the egg-yolks singly, and the whole eggs; pound again and after the preparation is thoroughly blended, rub it through a fine sieve. Set this forcemeat into a bowl, and stir it up a few moments with a spoon; poach one quenelle in boiling water to judge of its consistency, and if too hard, mix into it a few spoonfuls of cold veloute (No. 415), or raw cream; if, on the contrary, it is too thin, pound a little panada to smooth it down, and mix it in gradually with the forcemeat, by so doing it assumes a greater consistency.

← No. 91 Game Quenelle Forcemeat Elementary Methods No. 93 Different Forcemeats for Ravioles of Beef, C →

For the Modern Kitchen

A classic French mousseline-type forcemeat, scaled for a professional kitchen and written for a mortar rather than a machine. The controlling step is the trial quenelle: everything after it is correction.

Poach a test first, alwaysRanhofer's instruction to poach one quenelle and judge the consistency is the whole method, not an optional flourish. Cold cream or velouté loosens a mix that sets too firm; more panada tightens one that spreads in the water. Adjust before you shape the batch.
Calf's udderTétine de veau was poached, pressed and used as a mild white fat that carried no pork flavour. It is effectively unobtainable now. Cold unsalted butter or blanched pork back fat, worked in gradually and kept cold, gives the same enrichment; expect a slightly different, less silky set.
Panada No. 121The flour panada of this book is a stiff paste of flour cooked with liquid and butter, then cooled. Make it well ahead and use it cold, or it will slacken the forcemeat and melt the fat.
The machine and the mortarFig. 47 is a hand-cranked meat grinder and Fig. 142 the round sieve the text names. A food processor does the pounding and most of the sieving in a few minutes, but the meat, fat and bowl must be near-freezing throughout or the emulsion breaks. A final pass through a fine sieve or tamis still improves the texture noticeably.
SaltThree quarters of an ounce is about 4 teaspoons of fine salt, roughly 21 g, against a total mix of about 2 1/2 lb. That is close to 2 percent, correct for a forcemeat and not a misprint, but taste the trial quenelle before committing.
"Boiling water"The text says boiling, but poach at 170-180F with the water barely trembling. A true rolling boil tears quenelles apart and makes them coarse and dry.
Yield and useThe full quantity makes about 2 1/2 lb of forcemeat, enough for 40 to 50 tablespoon-sized quenelles, or lining and stuffing for a large timbale or pâté. It halves cleanly and freezes well raw, packed flat.
Raw eggsSix eggs go in uncooked, so hold the finished forcemeat cold and covered and poach it the same day, as with any modern mousseline.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its Elementary Methods section is essentially a French professional curriculum transplanted whole: panadas, veloutés and a graded series of quenelle forcemeats for fish, game, poultry and, here, lamb or veal. Quenelles were the workhorse garnish of nineteenth-century service à la russe, poached in spoon-shaped ovals to float in consommé, ring a vol-au-vent, or line a mould; the word is generally traced to the German Knödel, by way of Alsace and Lorraine. Calf's udder, called for here in substantial quantity alongside the meat, was a standard neutral white fat in French kitchens of the period, valued because it enriched without the flavour of pork, and its disappearance from butchers' counters is a fair measure of how much narrower the modern trade in offal has become.