Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓
Quenelles of Fowl
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the celery
Cover celery with water and boil slowly for 3 hours, skimming as needed.
Make the panada
In a 2-quart saucepan, combine white broth and butter, and bring to a boil.
Sift flour onto a piece of white paper, then stir into the boiling broth and butter mixture.
Cook until the mixture no longer sticks to your fingers, about 3 minutes.
Stir in 4 yolks of eggs and cook for a few more minutes, then transfer to a plate and cover with buttered paper.
Prepare the chicken and finish
Pound the chicken in a marble mortar, adding cream until very fine.
Rub the chicken through a wire sieve into a plate, ensuring no meat is wasted.
For every ½ pound of chicken, mix in 4 ounces of the panada and 3 ounces of butter in the mortar.
Pound together, adding salt and cayenne pepper to taste.
Add 2 or 3 more yolks of eggs and mix well.
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.
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Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together16,012 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Celery + chickentop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,375 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,905 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- White broth or stock
- Forms the liquid base of the panada that gives the quenelle its moisture.
- Fresh butter
- Adds fat and richness, keeping the quenelle tender and smooth.
- Fine flour
- Thickens the boiling broth into a paste that gives the mixture body and structure.
- Yolks of eggs
- Bind the mixture and enrich it, helping it set gently when cooked.
- Chicken
- Provides the main protein that forms the body of the quenelle.
The step that matters
Cook the panada until it no longer sticks to your fingers. Undercooked panada stays wet and will make the chicken mixture loose and hard to shape. Cooking the flour paste drives off excess water and gelatinizes the starch, giving a firm base that holds the quenelle together.
Swap the celery
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, egg, chicken, cream, pepper):
- Nutmegfits better
- Tarragonfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Celerythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, chicken, cream, pepper. 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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