Skip to main content
Main

Quenelles De Poisson

Fish quenelles are smooth fish and bread mixture shaped into balls and poached.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 De Poisson

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove skin and bones from the fish and pass it through a sieve.

  2. Prepare the bread-panada.

Make the mixture

  1. Mix the butter and fish with the bread-panada; season with pepper, salt, and a pinch of nutmeg or mace.

  2. Pound the mixture in a mortar until smooth.

  3. Incorporate the eggs one at a time, moistening with a little fish-broth until it forms a smooth paste.

  4. Test a piece in boiling broth; if too soft, add an egg; if too firm, add more fish-stock and panada.

Poach and serve

  1. Poach the mixture as directed for force-meat balls, using fish-stock instead of plain boiling water.

  2. Serve large quenelles as an entrée with lobster or shrimp sauce, or as a garnish.

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. Bread + fishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure so the quenelles hold their shape when poached.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the cooked quenelles tender rather than dry.
Fish flesh
Forms the main body of the quenelles and gives them their delicate flavour and texture.
Bread-panada
Absorbs moisture and lightens the mixture, helping the quenelles stay soft and tender.

The step that matters

Testing the consistency before poaching. Eggs add binding and panada or stock adds softness, so a small test poach shows whether the paste holds together. Too soft and it breaks apart in the liquid; too firm and the quenelles turn dense and rubbery.

“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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes