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Quenels of Fowl

A savory fowl quenelle made with ham, herbs, mushrooms, eggs, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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. Remove the white meat from the fowl and chop it finely.

  2. Scrape an equal amount of fat ham and half as much lean ham.

  3. In a mortar, combine the fowl, ham, parsley, thyme, shallot, and mushrooms; pound until well mixed.

  4. Add the egg yolks and mix well before folding in the beaten egg whites.

  5. Season with pepper and salt.

Poach and serve

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

  2. Using a large spoon, scoop the quenel mixture and drop it into the boiling stock.

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
Provides the main lean meat that forms the body of the quenelles.
Fat ham
Adds fat that keeps the quenelles moist and tender as they cook.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in to lighten the mixture and help it set with a delicate texture.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and add richness to help hold the quenelles together.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites must be beaten to hold air and then folded gently so the mixture stays light. Overmixing deflates the foam, leaving dense quenelles that may not hold their shape in the stock.

“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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