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Veal, Quenelles of

A veal quenelle made with a butter, flour, stock panada, eggs, and simmered in water, finished with white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal, Quenelles of

Ingredients

Directions

Make the panada

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and stock, stir, and cook until it forms a compact mass around the spoon.

  3. Set aside to cool.

Make the quenelle mixture

  1. Pass the veal through a mincing machine or chop it finely.

  2. Pound the panada (flour, butter, and stock) and the meat together until smooth.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, season to taste, and pound well together.

  4. Rub the mixture through a wire sieve and shape into quenelles using two dessert spoons.

  5. Dip one spoon in boiling water, fill it with the mixture, and shape it into an oval with a knife dipped in hot water.

  6. Scoop the mixture into the second spoon and place in a buttered sauté pan.

Poach and serve

  1. Pour in enough boiling water to nearly cover the quenelles.

  2. Cover with greased paper and cook gently for about 30 minutes.

  3. Drain and arrange in a circle or straight row, then mask with a good white 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fillet of veal
Provides the lean meat that forms the body of the quenelles.
Flour
Forms the panada with the stock, giving the mixture body and a light, binding structure.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm during gentle cooking.
Butter
Enriches the panada and adds richness and softness to the quenelles.
Stock
Moistens the panada so the mixture stays tender rather than dry.

The step that matters

Pound the panada and meat until smooth. Thorough pounding evenly distributes the panada through the meat, so the quenelles set tender and cohesive rather than grainy or crumbly when poached.

“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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