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Potage De Petites Quenelles De Pommes De Terre D LA Hollaiidaisc

A soup of small potato quenelles simmered in consommé with sorrel and chervil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sorrel and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 247 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potage De Petites Quenelles De Pommes De Terre D LA Hollaiidaisc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quenelle mixture

  1. Roast the potatoes in cinders, wrapped in paper, until tender.

  2. Peel the potatoes and mash them with butter, salt, pepper, nutmeg, egg yolks, and cream.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve to form quenelles.

  4. Shape the mixture into small round quenelles.

Poach and serve

  1. Place the quenelles in a buttered sauté pan and pour boiling consommé over them.

  2. Simmer gently for a few minutes without boiling.

  3. Transfer the quenelles to a tureen and add sorrel and chervil.

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. Sorrel + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Nutmeg + sorreltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together89 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Potato + sorreltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together72 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Potato + cherviltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together96 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Nutmeg + cherviltop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Dutch kidney potatoes
Provide the starchy bulk that becomes the soft, light body of the quenelles.
Butter
Adds richness and smoothness, carrying flavour and softening the mash.
Egg yolks
Bind the mashed potato so the quenelles hold their shape and set gently when heated.
Double cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mixture soft and smooth.

The step that matters

Simmer gently without boiling. Boiling agitates the delicate egg-bound quenelles, which can break apart or turn rough and tough. A gentle simmer lets the egg yolks set slowly and evenly while the quenelles stay intact.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, nutmeg, egg, cream, sorrel, chervil):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg, egg, cream, sorrel, chervil. 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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