Skip to main content
Main

Menu for a Party of Eight

Eggs, anchovy sauce, and spices are beaten into a mixture, shaped into small quenelles, poached, and added to soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Menu for a Party of Eight

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs and season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and anchovy sauce.

  2. Blend thoroughly until the right consistency.

Shape and poach

  1. Form tiny olive-shaped quenelles using two teaspoons.

  2. Poach the quenelles in boiling water for about 5 minutes.

  3. Drain and add to the soup just 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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + anchovytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when heated, giving the quenelles their firm, tender structure.
Anchovy sauce
Adds a savoury, salty depth that seasons the egg mixture.

The step that matters

Blend thoroughly until the right consistency. Eggs must be fully broken up and evenly mixed so the quenelles set smoothly and uniformly when poached. Lumps of unmixed egg white or yolk can cook unevenly, leaving a rough, patchy texture in the finished quenelles.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, anchovy, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, anchovy, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes