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Quenelles De Merlans

Quenelles de Merlans are quenelles made from whiting fillets, breadcrumbs, béchamel, butter, spices, and eggs, steamed and served with Italian sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and whiting match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 236 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Quenelles De Merlans

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Soak the crumb of 2 rolls in ½ cup milk for 30 minutes, then press out the milk.

  2. Combine crumb, béchamel sauce, butter, shallot, cloves, and mace in a stewpan.

  3. Set over gentle heat and stir for 10 minutes until firm.

  4. Remove the spices and shallot, then cool the mixture.

Add the fish and eggs

  1. Scrape the meat from the fillets of 2 whitings and combine with the cooled mixture and an equal amount of butter in a mortar.

  2. Pound until smooth and well mixed.

  3. Add 3 eggs one at a time, mixing well, and season with pepper and salt.

  4. Test a small piece rolled in flour by boiling it; if not firm, add another egg.

Mould and steam

  1. Rub the mixture through a wire sieve, butter 8 dariole moulds, and fill them with the mixture.

  2. Steam for 20 minutes.

  3. Turn out onto a dish and serve with Italian sauce.

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. Sauce + whitingtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together236 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Crumb of 2 rolls
Absorbs the milk and gives the quenelles a light, bound body.
Fillets of 2 whitings
Provide the main fish flesh that forms the body of the quenelles.
3 eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when steamed.
Butter
Adds richness and a soft, moist texture to the mixture.
½ cup milk
Softens the crumb so it blends smoothly into the mixture.
1 tablespoon béchamel sauce
Adds moisture and a smooth, creamy texture to the base.

The step that matters

Testing the mixture before moulding. Egg sets when heated, so a test piece boiled in flour shows whether the mixture is firm enough. Too little egg yields soft quenelles that break apart; adding eggs carefully keeps the texture light and cohesive.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sauce, butter, shallot, clove, whiting, pepper):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sauce, butter, shallot, clove, whiting, pepper. 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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