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Potage De Quenelles a LA Marie-louise

A French soup of bread quenelles in consommé with green peas and Parmesan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potage De Quenelles a LA Marie-louise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixtures

  1. Prepare your consommé as usual.

  2. Cut half of the bread into small cubes and soak them in a little milk.

  3. Melt 2 ounces of butter in a saucepan, add the soaked bread, salt, pepper, and nutmeg; dry the bread in the butter for 3 minutes and let it cool.

  4. Mix in 1 tablespoon of cream and 3 egg yolks.

  5. Make a white roux with 2 ounces of butter and 2 tablespoons of flour, then add enough cream to form a delicate paste; dry for a few minutes.

  6. Transfer the mixture to another saucepan, add 3 egg yolks, 1 tablespoon of Parmesan, and a pinch of white pepper and nutmeg.

  7. Combine both mixtures and test a small quenelle in the consommé for seasoning and consistency.

Form and poach

  1. Form small quenelles using a teaspoon and place them in a sauté pan.

  2. Poach the quenelles in the consommé for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the quenelles in a soup tureen with 1 liter of cooked green peas, 1 tablespoon of chopped parsley, and a pinch of sugar.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the body of the quenelles, absorbing milk and holding the paste together.
Egg yolks
Bind the paste and set when heated, giving the quenelles structure and richness.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor through the bread and roux.
Flour
Thickens the butter into a roux, giving the paste body and stability.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty depth to the quenelle mixture.

The step that matters

Test a small quenelle in the consommé. The paste must be firm enough to hold its shape but still tender. Egg yolks set when heated, so a test quenelle shows whether seasoning and consistency are right before the full batch is formed and poached.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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