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Quenels of Fowl

Quenels of Fowl are meatballs made from fowl, ham, herbs, and eggs, served in stock with white Italian sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Quenels of Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Combine the scraped fowl, fat ham, lean ham, parsley, thyme, shallot, and mushrooms in a mortar, then pound the mixture until well combined.

  2. Add the egg yolks and mix before incorporating the beaten egg whites.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Poach and serve

  1. Bring the stock to a boil in a pot on a quick stove.

  2. Using a large spoon, drop spoonfuls of the quenel mixture into the boiling stock.

  3. Cook until they float, then remove with a slotted spoon.

  4. Serve with white Italian sauce poured over the quenels.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl white meat
Forms the main body of the quenels, giving them their structure once cooked.
Fat ham
Adds fat that keeps the quenels moist and tender rather than dry.
Egg whites
Set during cooking to bind the mixture and give the quenels a light, firm texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the mixture together.

The step that matters

Poaching the quenels in the stock. The stock must be at a boil when the spoonfuls go in, so the outside sets quickly and the quenels hold their shape. Cooking until they float signals they are cooked through.

“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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