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Beef Pounded Op Invalids’ Quenelle

A pounded meat mixture shaped into quenelles, served hot or steamed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Beef Pounded Op Invalids’ Quenelle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Slightly grill or roast the steak or chicken until half cooked.

  2. Remove the outside pieces and all fat, then chop finely.

  3. Pound the meat and pass it through a wire sieve.

Mix and cook

  1. Mix the meat with bread crumbs, milk, and seasoning.

  2. Place in a cup.

  3. Steam for 10-15 minutes before serving.

  4. Heat and serve.

  5. Alternatively, spread the mixture on thin toast or mix with a beaten egg.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

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

  4. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  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

Steak or chicken
Provides the protein base that gives the quenelle its body and savory flavor.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help bind the meat into a soft, cohesive mixture.
Milk
Adds moisture so the finished mixture stays tender rather than dry.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set lightly when cooked.

The step that matters

Pound the meat and pass it through a wire sieve. Pounding and sieving break the meat fibres into a fine, smooth texture. Skipping this leaves a coarse, stringy quenelle that does not hold together well.

“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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