Skip to main content
Main

Quenelles, German

A German-style quenelle made with butter, milk, flour, eggs, Parmesan, and seasonings, simmered in water or gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Quenelles, German

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter with the milk over medium heat.

  2. Once the mixture rises, quickly stir in the flour, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Stir briskly until the paste pulls away from the sides of the saucepan.

Shape and cook

  1. Remove from heat and gradually mix in the eggs and grated Parmesan.

  2. Shape the mixture into quenelles.

  3. Simmer the quenelles gently in water or gravy until cooked through, ensuring the liquid does not boil.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Flour
Forms the starch paste that gives the quenelles their structure once cooked.
Eggs
Bind the paste and set when simmered, holding the quenelles together.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor.
Milk
Supplies liquid to hydrate the flour and create a soft, moist paste.

The step that matters

Simmer gently without boiling. A rapid boil can break the delicate paste apart and cause the quenelles to crumble or become tough. Gentle heat lets the eggs set evenly while the centers cook through.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, flour, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes