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Quenels of Fowl

Quenelles of fowl are meat dumplings made from fowl, ham fat, breadcrumbs, mushrooms, parsley, thyme, shallots, eggs, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Quenels of Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Combine the scraped fowl meat, ham fat, mushrooms, parsley, thyme, and shallots in a mortar and mix well.

  2. Add salt, pepper, soaked breadcrumbs, and the yolks of the eggs, and mix thoroughly.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

Poach and serve

  1. Bring the stock to a boil in a stew pan.

  2. Using a tablespoon, scoop the mixture and drop it into the boiling stock.

  3. Cook until the quenelles are firm, about the size of a hard-boiled egg yolk.

  4. Remove the quenelles with a slotted spoon and place them on a dish.

  5. Pour white Italian sauce over the quenelles before serving.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Mushroom + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl meat
Forms the main body of the quenelles and sets into a firm, tender texture when poached.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the mixture; whipped whites lighten it and help it puff gently.
Breadcrumbs
Soaked in cream, they add moisture and softness so the quenelles stay tender.
Ham fat
Adds richness and flavour and keeps the mixture moist during poaching.

The step that matters

Poaching the quenelles in gently boiling stock. The stock must be boiling when the quenelles go in, so the outside sets quickly and they hold their shape. Cook only until firm; prolonged boiling toughens the protein and can break the quenelles apart.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, ham, cream, mushroom, thyme, shallot, egg):

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ham, cream, mushroom, thyme, shallot, 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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