No. 93

Different Forcemeats for Ravioles of Beef, Chicken and Veal

Differentes Farces pour Ravioles de Boeuf, Volaille et Veau

For Beef.—Half a pound of cooked chopped tenderloin of beef, quarter of a pound of brains in small one-eighth squares, two ounces of cooked and chopped ham, two ounces of chopped spinach. Two ounces of grated parmesan; salt, pepper, nutmeg, three egg-yolks and two tablespoonfuls of cream. All these ingredients well mixed and to be used for square ravioles.

Chicken.—Half a pound of chopped white or black poultry meat, and half a pound of chopped veal udder; pound well together with four egg-yolks and a gill of veloute; season with salt, pepper and nutmeg; mix into this preparation four ounces of parmesan cheese; this is for round ravioles.

Veal.—Fry two ounces of onions in four ounces of butter without allowing it to take color; moisten with broth, reduce to a glaze and put in the veal, seasoning with salt, pepper and nutmeg; add four egg-yolks and chopped parsley. Make triangular shaped ravioles with this.

← No. 92 Lamb or Veal Quenelle Forcemeat Elementary Methods No. 94 To Prepare Gelatine from Calf's Feet →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Three separate filling mixtures, each keyed to a shape so the kitchen could tell them apart on the plate. Two of the three lean on ingredients a modern cook has to substitute or source deliberately.

The veal quantity is missingThe third forcemeat says "put in the veal" without ever stating how much. Working back from the others, half a pound of finely chopped cooked veal balances two ounces of onion, four ounces of butter and four yolks; treat that as a reconstruction, not the original intent.
A gillHalf a cup, four fluid ounces. The velouté in the chicken forcemeat should be cold and stiff when it goes in, or the mixture will be too loose to pipe or spoon.
BrainsBovine brain and spinal cord are specified risk material under BSE rules and cannot be sold for food from cattle over 12 months in the EU or over 30 months in the US. Calf brains from a licensed butcher are the only route, and many countries have removed them from sale entirely. Lamb brains or a firm poached sweetbread, diced the same eighth-inch, sit in the same place texturally.
Veal udderTetine de veau, poached and pressed, was used as a binder in professional kitchens of this period, valued for softness rather than flavour. It is very hard to source today. Substitute an equal weight of fatty pork shoulder or poached sweetbread; plain lean veal will give a dry, tight filling.
"White or black poultry meat"Breast and leg; the recipe allows either.
Reduce to a glazeThe onion-and-butter base for the veal filling is moistened with broth and cooked down until the liquid is syrupy and coats the pan, not until dry. This is where that filling gets its flavour, and it takes longer than it sounds.
SpinachSqueeze it hard. Two ounces of chopped spinach carrying water will slacken the beef forcemeat and make the squares split in the water.
Testing and cookingPoach a teaspoon of each mixture before filling anything, taste for salt, and adjust. The raw yolks are the binder and set during poaching. The recipe gives no cooking time or yield.

A Little History

Ranhofer was cooking at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) reads as a French professional's reference book rather than a domestic one — hence three fillings given at once, each assigned a different shape. The fillings here are thoroughly French: velouté as a binder, veal udder for softness, brains for the particular yielding texture that nineteenth-century garde-manger work prized and modern kitchens have largely abandoned. Cooked tenderloin, cooked ham, poultry meat and veal all end up here, the sort of building blocks the section's other entries also deal in.