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Quenelles or Cream of Chicken a Hestragon

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Quenelles or Cream of Chicken a Hestragon

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare the chicken breast as in Receipt No. 174.

  2. Butter the dariole moulds.

  3. Fill each mould with the chicken mixture, tapping them on the table to settle the meat.

  4. Place the moulds in a bain-marie with boiling water reaching three-quarters up the sides.

  5. Boil gently until the meat changes color on top, indicating it is set.

  6. Carefully turn the quenelles out onto an entree dish.

  7. Pour half a pint of Tarragon Sauce over the quenelles.

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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Chicken + tarragontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together619 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Tarragon + saucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together566 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + tarragontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,572 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, sauce):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Tarragonthe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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