Fish forcemeat

How to make it

1. 1

   Scrape the scales off the fish from the tail upward, clean it, wash it and dry it well. Cut out the fillets, dry them, and scrape the fish from the tail upward; also scrape off the fish meat left on the bone. Rub the fish meat fine on a board.

2. 2

   For a deep plateful of scraped fish, use 15 g potato flour, 15 g salt, ½ l fresh milk, ½ l cream and 1 pinch of mace. Pound or stir the fish with the flour and salt for ½ hour.

3. 3

   The boiled, completely cold milk and cream are added a spoonful at a time, preferably with 2 min. intervals. The forcemeat can be a little looser for a pudding than for balls. Test by boiling a test ball. Stir well down from the edge of the dish, so that it is evenly worked. The mace is added last, or can be omitted.

4. 4

   Instead of pounding the forcemeat, you can, after the fish has been scraped from the skin and bones, grind it 5 times through a meat grinder with the flour and salt, add 60 g melted, cold butter, grind again 5 times, then begin adding the liquid.

5. 5

   For a pudding, grease and crumb the mould, fill with forcemeat to a finger from the edge, and cook at once in a water bath in the oven for about ¾–1 hour. Serve with creamed butter.

6. 6

   The balls simmer gently in the strained fish stock for 3 min. Cold pudding can be cut into slices and browned in a pan in butter; likewise the balls. Raw fish-forcemeat dough can be fried as cakes directly in the pan in butter or fat.

7. 7

   For stock, put the head, skin and bones on the heat in cold, salted water (1 heaped teaspoon salt per litre of water). Take the eyes out of the head; these make the stock cloudy. Fish pudding and balls can be served with shrimp or lobster sauce, caper sauce, celery sauce and so on.