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How to Make Quenelles of Force-meat

Quenelles of force-meat are made by pounding veal and suet with panada, eggs, and seasonings into a smooth mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

How to Make Quenelles of Force-meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Scrape the veal with a knife until only the fiber remains.

  2. Pound the veal in a mortar for 10 minutes until it becomes a puree.

  3. Pass the veal through a wire sieve and set aside.

Make the force meat

  1. Pound the shredded suet in the mortar until fine.

  2. Mix the suet with the panada and pound well together.

  3. Add the veal to the mixture and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  4. Gradually add the eggs while continually pounding the mixture.

  5. To test, poach a small piece in boiling water; it should be delicate and firm.

  6. For a more delicate flavor, add white sauce or melted butter.

  7. You can also add chopped parsley, shallot, or mushrooms for variation.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the lean, finely pounded body of the quenelles and gives them their structure.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the mixture moist and tender as it cooks.
Panada
Binds the mixture and helps keep it light and moist.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when poached.

The step that matters

Gradually add the eggs while continually pounding the mixture. Adding eggs slowly while pounding lets them emulsify fully into the meat and fat, so the mixture binds evenly instead of splitting or turning loose.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, beef, pepper, nutmeg, egg, sauce):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, pepper, nutmeg, egg, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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