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Timbale D'epina Rd, Puree De Jam Bon

A quenelle-based dish of spinach and ham baked in dariole molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 503 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Timbale D'epina Rd, Puree De Jam Bon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach mixture

  1. Prepare quenelle meat of chicken or veal as per the recipe for quenelles.

  2. Mix the quenelle meat with a nice amount of spinach puree and ½ cup of whipped cream.

  3. Grease some dariole molds with butter.

Make the ham filling

  1. Dip your finger in cold water and press a hole in the center of each dariole.

  2. Fill the hole with a puree of ham made by beating cooked ham with half-glaze and straining it.

  3. Add more half-glaze if the mixture is too thick.

  4. Flavor the ham puree with mustard and a pinch of cayenne.

  5. Cover the ham puree with a coating of the quenelle mixture.

Poach and serve

  1. Poach the dariole molds as you would other quenelles.

  2. Serve the timbales with half-glaze flavored with ham.

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. Spinach + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together503 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Meat + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together855 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Quenelle meat of chicken or veal
Forms the delicate, light body of the timbale when cooked gently.
Puree of spinach
Adds color, earthy flavor and moisture to the spinach layer.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and lightness, keeping the quenelle mixture tender.
Cooked lean ham
Provides the savory, meaty flavor of the central ham filling.
Half-glaze
Adds concentrated savory flavor and moisture to the ham puree.

The step that matters

Poach the dariole molds as you would other quenelles. Gentle, below-simmering heat sets the protein-based mixture into a tender custard-like structure. Boiling or rapid heat can make it curdle, spongy or cracked.

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, cream, butter, ham, mustard):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, cream, butter, ham, mustard. 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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