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Quenelles of Veal

Quenelles of veal are small, smooth dumplings made from minced veal, breadcrumbs, butter, eggs, and seasonings, simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Quenelles of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the panada

  1. Soak the breadcrumbs in a little milk for a few minutes, then squeeze them dry.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan, add the breadcrumbs, and stir until they form a paste.

Shape and poach

  1. Remove from heat and add the minced veal, seasonings, and eggs; rub through a wire sieve.

  2. Shape the mixture into small egg shapes using two dessert spoons dipped in boiling water.

  3. Place the quenelles in a well-greased stew pan and pour boiling water gently into the pan until they are covered.

  4. Simmer very slowly for twenty minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with a good white sauce and arrange on a potato border with a vegetable puree in the center.

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

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

  3. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Veal
Forms the main body of the quenelles and gives them their delicate, tender texture when cooked gently.
Breadcrumbs
Soaked and cooked into a panada that binds the mixture and keeps the quenelles light and moist.
Butter
Enriches the panada with fat, adding richness and softening the texture of the finished quenelles.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set firmly during gentle poaching.

The step that matters

Simmer very slowly. Boiling vigorously can toughen and break the delicate egg-and-veal mixture. A gentle simmer lets the proteins set gradually, keeping the quenelles tender and intact.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, pepper, egg, lemon, milk):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, pepper, egg, lemon, milk. 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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