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Forcemeat Balls, or Quenelles, for Soup, Ete

This recipe makes forcemeat balls (quenelles) to add to soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Forcemeat Balls, or Quenelles, for Soup, Ete

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mince the meat small.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, melted butter, herbs, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and raw egg.

  3. Pound all ingredients together until well combined.

Shape and cook

  1. Form the mixture into small balls, using flour on your hands.

  2. Poach the balls in boiling water until cooked.

  3. Add the cooked balls to the soup.

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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's tongue or cold veal
Provides the main meaty body of the quenelles.
Fine bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture a light, binding body.
Melted butter
Adds fat for a tender, moist texture.
Raw egg
Binds the mixture and sets when poached, holding the shape together.

The step that matters

Pound all ingredients together until well combined. Thorough mixing spreads the egg, fat and crumbs evenly so the quenelles hold together when poached and stay tender rather than crumbly or dense.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, bread, butter, pepper, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, butter, pepper, egg. 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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