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Potage De Quenelles a LA Juvenal

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potage De Quenelles a LA Juvenal

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Add enough flour to make a light roux and cook for a few minutes.

  3. Stir in enough cream to form a soft paste and dry it out over moderate heat for 10 minutes.

  4. Mix in the grated Parmesan, egg yolks, chicken stock, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and spinach puree.

  5. Test the mixture by poaching a small quenelle; adjust with more stock if too firm or an egg yolk if too delicate.

  6. Form quenelles using teaspoons and place them in a lightly buttered sauté pan.

  7. Poach the quenelles in boiling broth 12 to 15 minutes before serving.

  8. Drain them on a towel and place in a soup tureen, then pour the soup over them.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cream, parmesan cheese, egg, chicken, pepper):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, parmesan cheese, egg, chicken, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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