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Forcemeat or Quenelles

This dish is meat quenelles made from forcemeat, suet, eggs, breadcrumbs, and seasonings, poached in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Forcemeat or Quenelles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat paste

  1. Finely chop the suet and meat, then pound them to a paste in a mortar.

  2. Add salt, pepper, and herbs if desired, and mix well.

  3. Beat the eggs thoroughly and mix them into the meat paste.

  4. Strain the mixture through a wire sieve or fine colander to remove any fibers.

  5. Add the dried, pulverized, and sifted bread-crumbs to the strained mixture.

Shape and poach

  1. Use two teaspoons to form the mixture into small egg-shaped quenelles.

  2. Drop the quenelles into boiling water and poach for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. To serve, place the quenelles in a tureen and pour hot 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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw meat
Forms the main body of the quenelles, giving them their substance and bite.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the quenelles moist and tender during poaching.
Eggs
Bind the paste together and help the quenelles set when heated.
Dried bread-crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture hold its shape.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture through a sieve. Removing fibers gives a smooth, even texture. Fibers left in the paste can make the quenelles stringy and uneven once 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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