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Veal, Quenelles of

Veal quenelles are smooth, oval-shaped dumplings made from veal, stock, butter, flour, eggs, and seasonings, cooked in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal, Quenelles of

Ingredients

Directions

Make the panada

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the flour and stock. Stir and cook until the mixture forms a compact mass around the spoon.

  2. Set the mixture aside to cool.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pass the veal through a mincing machine or chop it finely.

  2. Pound the cooled mixture and the veal together until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time. Season to taste. Pound well together.

  3. Rub the mixture through a wire sieve.

Shape and poach

  1. Shape into quenelles using two spoons. Dip one spoon in boiling water. Fill it with the mixture. Shape it into an oval with a knife dipped in hot water. Scoop the quenelle from the first spoon to the second.

  2. Place in a buttered sauté pan. Pour in enough boiling water to nearly cover the quenelles. Cover with greased paper. Cook gently for about an hour.

Serve

  1. Drain and arrange in a circle or straight row. Mask with a good white sauce 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Fillet of veal
Provides the main body of the quenelles and their meaty flavour.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a panada that holds the quenelles together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so it sets firm and holds its shape while cooking.
Butter
Enriches the panada and adds richness to the quenelles.
Stock
Moistens the panada and adds savoury flavour to the quenelles.

The step that matters

Cooking the panada until it forms a compact mass. Cooking the flour and stock until the mixture pulls away from the spoon gelatinises the starch and removes excess moisture. A stiff panada keeps the quenelles light and stops them from becoming wet or falling apart when poached.

“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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