Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Quenelles

Chicken quenelles are a creamy chicken mixture formed into small dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Quenelles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the panada

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour and add the stock, bringing it to a boil while stirring to create a panada.

  3. Set the panada aside to cool.

Make the quenelle mixture

  1. Finely shred or mince the chicken, or use a mincing machine.

  2. Pound the chicken in a mortar, gradually adding the panada and each egg separately.

  3. Season well and pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  4. Whip the cream slightly and fold it into the chicken puree.

  5. Poach a small amount of the mixture; if too stiff, add more stock or cream.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Chicken
Provides the main protein that sets into the light, firm body of the quenelle.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a panada that helps keep the chicken mixture moist and tender.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it firm when poached.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the quenelles soft and smooth.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the base of the panada.

The step that matters

Keeping the mixture the right consistency before poaching. If the mixture is too stiff, the quenelles will be dense and tough; a test poach shows whether to add more stock or cream. Adding the panada and eggs gradually and keeping the mixture cold helps the proteins bind evenly without splitting.

“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

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesChicken PanadaChicken Panada75 recipes