Читать книгу The French Menu Cookbook: The Food and Wine of France - Season by Delicious Season - Richard Olney - Страница 36

A mousseline forcemeat is the ultimate in a stuffing. It is most often made from fish (such as pike, sole, flounder, whiting, salmon, lobster), chicken, veal, feathered game, wild rabbit, or hare. The first time one launches oneself into its preparation it may seem complicated, but the basic principles are simple. It is a fine purée of raw flesh, bound by a bit of egg white and mounted with heavy cream.

The younger and fresher the flesh, the less albuminous support is required in the form of egg white. The less egg white used and the more cream—up to a certain point—the finer the result. The trick is to find the point at which the farce still holds, and the usual method is to decide on a given amount of egg white, and to then test it 2 or 3 times while adding the cream by poaching a tiny quenelle in a pan of simmering water that is kept ready. As long as the little dumpling poaches firmly, more cream can be added. With an excess of egg white, all the delicacy is lost, and the stuffing is heavy and rubbery. With too little egg white, or too much cream, it collapses during the poaching process. Quenelles that are poached in hot water require more egg white than those that are poached “dry” in a gentle oven, or than a molded mousseline forcemeat. Fish can support more egg white than chicken—a young chicken, freshly killed, needs none at all.

The testing method will, no doubt, seem discouraging to the reader, as it often does to me, and the following recipe is a good, standard one that takes no chances. There is, perhaps, particularly for chicken or veal, a bit too much egg white, and most materials may support a bit more cream than the quantity given. Assuming the cream to be absolutely fresh, which is no problem in America, and the instructions followed to the letter, it cannot go wrong.