No. 952

Rissoles of Game, Chicken or Fish Forcemeat, Beef or Veal Palate or Lamb

Rissoles de Farce de Gibier, de Volaille, ou de Poisson de Palais de Boeuf ou de Veau, ou d'Agneau

For the rissoles of game, chicken, or fish forcemeat see No. 63. Mix in with either of these some raw fine herbs; prepare and finish the same as for the rissoles in Elementary Methods (No. 161).

Beef or Veal Palate.—Cut a pound of beef of beef or veal palate into three-sixteenth inch squares; have also six ounces of cooked lean ham cut the same and put them with some bechamel (No. 409) and melted meat-glaze (No. 402); set aside to get quite cold. Roll out fragments of puff paste and finish the rissoles as for No. 161. Serve on folded napkins.

Lamb.—Chop up finely one medium sized shallot; fry it in butter and add to it both veloute (No. 415) and tomato sauce (No. 549); stir in a pound of cold lean roast lamb cut in three-sixteenth inch squares, season to taste, transfer it to a vessel to set aside until perfectly cold, then form it into rissoles the same as for No. 161, and serve on folded napkins.

← No. 951 Rissoles of Fat Livers a la Ude Hot Side Dishes No. 953 Rissoles of Mushroom and Marrow →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes in cross-references, assuming you own the whole book. The method underneath is simple: bind cold cooked meat in a thick sauce, chill it solid, enclose it in puff paste and deep-fry.

What the cross-references meanNo. 161 is the elementary rissole method, using puff paste fried in hot fat, which this entry tells you to follow. No. 63 is a forcemeat; No. 409 is bechamel, No. 415 veloute, No. 402 a reduced meat glaze, No. 549 tomato sauce.
The hinge: the filling must be cold and stiff"Until perfectly cold" is the whole recipe. A warm or loose filling steams inside the paste, bursts the seam and empties into the fryer. Make the mixture thick enough that a spoon stands in it, spread it on a tray, and refrigerate several hours or overnight.
Beef or veal palateThe lining of the roof of the mouth, sold in the nineteenth century as a cheap gelatinous cut. It required long blanching, scraping of the outer skin and simmering until tender before dicing. It is effectively unobtainable now outside specialist butchers; cooked lean veal, sweetbread or well-braised beef cheek gives a comparable texture in the dice.
Three-sixteenth inch squaresAbout 5 mm — small enough that the dice bind rather than tear the pastry. Cut by hand; a food processor gives paste, not cubes.
Sauce quantityNone is specified. Use just enough to coat the dice heavily, roughly 3/4 to 1 cup of thick sauce per pound of meat. Too much and it will not set; too little and the filling is dry.
"Raw fine herbs"Fines herbes uncooked — parsley, chervil, chives and tarragon, chopped fine. They go in at the end so they keep their colour and perfume through the frying.
FryingThe original gives no temperature. Modern deep-frying practice for such pastries is around 360-375F; fry in small batches so the temperature holds, since puff paste needs quick heat to lift. Drain on a rack, then transfer.
Yield and serviceThe recipe gives no yield; a pound of meat plus binding will make roughly two dozen small rissoles. "Serve on folded napkins" is the standard service direction of the period; a warm plate with paper beneath does the same job.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the book is organised as a working kitchen's reference rather than a domestic cookbook — hence the chains of numbered cross-references, which assume a brigade that already knows the mother sauces. A rissole in this tradition is a fried pastry turnover, the name generally traced to Old French roissole, from a root meaning to redden or brown. Entries like this one show how a nineteenth-century restaurant kitchen turned leftovers into billable courses: cold roast lamb, trimmings of ham, and beef palate — an offcut then cheap and now nearly gone from the trade — were diced, bound in yesterday's bechamel or veloute, and sent out as a hot side dish indistinguishable in prestige from anything cooked to order.