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Quenelles of Grouse

Quenelles of grouse are light, poached dumplings made from ground grouse, breadcrumbs, bacon, butter, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Quenelles of Grouse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pound the grouse meat in a mortar until it can be rubbed through a coarse sieve.

  2. Mix in the soaked bread crumbs, bacon, butter, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and egg yolks, then pound the mixture again until well combined.

  3. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Shape and poach

  1. Divide the mixture into small portions and shape them like eggs.

  2. Poach the quenelles in boiling stock for about 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Drain well and serve with gravy made from the grouse bones and trimmings, thickened with arrowroot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Grouse meat
Forms the main body of the quenelles, giving them their savoury flavour and substance.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk, they add moisture and a tender, light texture to the mixture.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together and enrich it so it holds its shape in the poaching liquid.
Egg whites
Beaten to a firm froth and folded in, they lighten the mixture and help it rise tender.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, moist texture in the finished quenelles.
Bacon fat
Contributes fat and savoury flavour, keeping the quenelles moist as they cook.

The step that matters

Gently folding in the beaten egg whites. Beaten whites hold air that lightens the mixture. Stirring or overworking them deflates that air, leaving dense quenelles instead of light, tender ones.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, milk, 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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