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Lobster Quenelles

Lobster Quenelles are small, fried dumplings made from lobster meat, celery, egg yolks, seasonings, bread crumbs, butter, and raw eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Lobster Quenelles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster

  1. Boil the lobster and remove the meat.

Make the mixture

  1. Pound the lobster meat in a mortar with celery, hard-boiled egg yolks, and seasonings.

  2. Add bread crumbs and melted butter to the mixture, then stir in the raw eggs.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into small egg forms.

  2. Fry the shaped quenelles until golden.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

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

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Lobster
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the mixture.
Raw eggs
Bind the mixture so the quenelles hold their shape when fried.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body so it shapes more easily.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a fine, smooth texture to the pounded mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the fried exterior turn golden.

The step that matters

Fry the shaped quenelles until golden. The mixture is soft and held together mainly by egg and crumbs, so it can break apart or stay greasy if the oil is not hot enough. Frying at a steady heat sets the outside quickly so the inside stays tender.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, celery, egg, pepper, mace, bread, butter. 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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