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Quenelles De Poisson

Fish quenelles made with bread, fish, eggs, butter, and seasonings, poached in fish stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Quenelles De Poisson

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove skin and bones from the fish and pass it through a sieve.

  2. Prepare the bread panada.

Make the paste

  1. Mix the butter and fish with the bread panada.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper, salt, and a pinch of nutmeg or mace.

  3. Pound the mixture in a mortar until smooth.

  4. Incorporate the eggs one at a time, moistening with a little fish broth until it forms a smooth paste.

Poach and serve

  1. Poach the quenelles in fish stock instead of plain boiling water.

  2. Serve large quenelles as an entrée with lobster or shrimp sauce, or as a garnish.

  3. Test a piece in boiling broth.

  4. If too soft, add an egg.

  5. If too firm, add more fish stock and panada.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + fishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fine fish flesh
Forms the body of the quenelle and sets into a light, tender mass when poached.
Bread panada
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the quenelles tender rather than dense.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more delicate texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when heated, holding the quenelle together.

The step that matters

Testing the paste consistency. Eggs set when heated and the panada and broth add moisture, so the balance decides whether a quenelle stays tender or turns rubbery or falls apart. Testing a small piece in boiling broth before shaping the rest lets the cook correct it.

“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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