Name: Quenelles, French Forcemeat Balls
Ingredients: Pepper; Coarse sea salt; Nutmeg; Flour; Boiling water

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Quenelles, French Forcemeat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Mix pepper, coarse sea salt, nutmeg, and flour in a bowl.
Add boiling water until the mixture is smooth.
Form the mixture into oblong balls using a spoon.
Sprinkle flour on a board and roll the quenelles in it.
Boil a large saucepan of water and add the quenelles one by one.
Boil for 3 minutes, then remove and drain.
Serve in mock-turtle soup, with rich gravy, or dip in egg and bread crumbs and fry as croquettes.

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.

Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).