Name: To Prepare Decorated Quenelles, Molded Quenelles and Pocket Quenelles
Ingredients: buttered white paper; forcemeat (chicken, game, or fish); truffles or red beef tongue; egg white; salted water

Why it works: Chicken and truffle work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 756 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

To Prepare Decorated Quenelles, Molded Quenelles and Pocket Quenelles

Ingredients

Directions

Shape the forcemeat on buttered white paper using a small knife.
Decorate large quenelles with truffles or red beef tongue before or after poaching.
If decorating before poaching, wet the decorations with egg white and press them into the forcemeat.
Poach the quenelles in salted water without allowing it to boil.
If decorating after poaching, apply the decorations to dampened forcemeat on the quenelles.

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.

Chicken + truffletop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together756 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Truffle + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,604 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,991 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).