CookEat Recipe
Veal Quenelles with Tomato, Mushrooms and Olives
Delicate poached veal quenelles made with suet and a thick milk sauce, served in tomato sauce with mushrooms and brined olives.
Method
Steps
Step 1
Gather the ingredients: 120 g lean milk-fed veal, trimmed of membranes; 80 g food-grade veal suet from around the kidney, professionally trimmed of membranes; 75 g plain flour: 50 g for the milk paste, about 15 g for light shaping and about 10 g, 1 tablespoon, for the finishing roux; 60 g butter: 30 g for the milk paste and 30 g for the finishing roux; 200 ml milk; 1 whole egg and 1 additional egg yolk; Salt; 7–8 ripe tomatoes, about 700–800 g, cut into pieces; Quarter of an onion, finely chopped; 1 garlic clove, finely chopped; 1 finger-length piece of celery, about 8 cm, finely chopped; 5 basil leaves and 1 tablespoon parsley leaves, chopped; 2 tablespoons olive oil; Black pepper for the tomato sauce only; 100 g fresh cultivated mushrooms, cleaned and sliced; 50 g brined pitted olives, drained.
Step 2
Make the tomato sauce: put the tomatoes, onion, garlic, celery, basil, parsley, olive oil, salt and pepper in a saucepan together from cold. Cook over moderate heat, stirring, for about 25–35 minutes until reduced to a lightly flowing sauce. Press through a fine sieve and discard skins, seeds and fibres. Add the sliced mushrooms to the sieved sauce and simmer for about 10–15 minutes until cooked; add the drained pitted olives. Keep the sauce hot.
Step 3
Meanwhile make the thick milk paste: melt 30 g butter, stir in 50 g flour and cook gently for about 1 minute without browning. Whisk in the 200 ml milk gradually and cook, stirring, until very thick, about 5–7 minutes. Spread in a shallow dish and cool promptly in the refrigerator until cold before mixing with raw meat and eggs.
Step 4
Finely mince the trimmed veal and cold suet together, then pound in a mortar or pulse briefly in a food processor until a very fine paste forms, keeping the mixture cold. Mix thoroughly with the cold milk paste, the whole egg, extra yolk and salt only. Do not add pepper to the quenelle mixture and do not taste it raw.
Step 5
Lightly flour a board with the shaping flour. Roll the cold mixture gently into a rope and cut into 18–20 small sausage-shaped pieces, about finger length and 1.5–2 cm thick. Use only enough flour to handle them; keep the unpoached pieces chilled.
Step 6
Bring water to a gentle boil in a wide pan. Add the quenelles in batches and poach gently for about 8–10 minutes as they swell, checking that their centres reach 74°C; extend only as needed. Lift with a slotted spoon and drain well.
Step 7
In a separate pan melt the remaining 30 g butter, stir in the tablespoon of flour and cook over moderate heat until hazelnut-coloured. Gradually pour the hot tomato-mushroom-olive sauce into this roux while whisking. Simmer briefly until lightly thickened, then serve the drained hot quenelles generously surrounded by the sauce.
Step 8
For dried mushrooms, replace the fresh mushrooms with about 10 g commercially sold dried edible mushrooms. Soak according to the pack, drain, rinse away grit and chop; cook thoroughly in the sieved tomato sauce before adding olives. For a meat-jus version, omit the complete tomato sauce, mushrooms, olives and finishing roux, and serve the same poached quenelles in about 300 ml hot ready-to-use meat jus.
Step 9
For a giblet and sweetbread accompaniment, use 100 g prepared chicken hearts and gizzards simmered in 250 ml ready-to-use stock until tender, about 45–60 minutes, then 100 g professionally prepared veal sweetbreads in small pieces cooked in that stock for about 10–15 minutes. Verify at least 74°C throughout the poultry and organ pieces, reduce the cooking liquid to a small sauce and add the freshly poached quenelles. Start this accompaniment before shaping and poaching the quenelles, so everything is ready to serve hot together.
Step 10
White chicken meat or boneless white fish may replace the 120 g veal in the quenelle paste; retain the same suet, milk paste, eggs and shaping method. Check 74°C at the centre of every quenelle because the mixture contains egg, and serve immediately.
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