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Fish Quenelles

Fish quenelles are poached fish dumplings made with bread crumbs, butter, milk, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fish Quenelles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk, bread crumbs, and butter over low heat while stirring.

  2. Spread the mixture on a plate and let it cool.

Shape and poach

  1. Pound the fish in a mortar, then add the cooled mixture and mix thoroughly.

  2. Add the egg and seasoning, and mix again before rubbing the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Shape the mixture into quenelles using a dessert spoon and drop them into boiling water.

  4. Poach for 10 minutes, then remove and strain.

Serve

  1. Serve on toast or a bed of mashed potatoes with a nice white sauce.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

White fish
Provides the main body of the quenelles, setting into a delicate, tender mixture when poached.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and butter to bind the mixture and give it body without making it heavy.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the quenelles hold their shape during poaching.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, softening the texture of the mixture.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs, keeping the mixture soft and smooth.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a sieve. Pushing the fish and crumb mixture through a sieve removes fibres and lumps, giving the quenelles a smooth, even texture. Skipping it can leave a coarse, uneven result.

“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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