Quenelles

Egg- or sausage-shaped purées of chicken, veal, game, or seafood, poached or baked, quenelles have long been famous in and around Lyonnais. The quenelle was once synonymous with French cooking at its finest (or at least at its most elaborate). My first quenelle was a disaster, sampled in the dining room of a cheap hotel on Lake Nantua—after which the famous quenelles Nantua (quenelles with crayfish sauce) were named—and little different from a pasty hot dog with canned tomato sauce on top.

I’m guessing that much of the quenelle’s prestige has to do with how difficult it once was to make. Meat or seafood had to be worked into a purée in a large mortar and the mixture then worked through a drum sieve. Nowadays the food processor does this work, so anyone can make quenelles fairly easily at home. Quenelle mixtures come in various forms. Older recipes call for panades of flour and eggs and veal kidney fat, while more contemporary versions use a mousseline mixture, based on cream and identical to the mixture used for making boudins blancs.