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Stewed Frogs

A dish of frogs sautéed in butter, then simmered with wine, flour, egg yolks, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Stewed Frogs

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the frogs and sauté until cooked through.

  3. Pour in the white wine and simmer for a few minutes.

  4. Stir in the flour, beaten egg yolks, and chopped parsley just before removing from heat.

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 + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. White wine + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

Frogs
Form the main body of the dish as the protein that is sautéed until cooked through.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and carries flavor when the frogs are sautéed.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma, and its flavor concentrates as it simmers.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the sauce becomes body rather than watery.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a smoother, silkier texture.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks just before removing from heat. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. If the pan is still hot, the yolks can curdle or scramble, leaving the sauce grainy instead of smooth and creamy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, white wine, egg, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, white wine, egg, flour. 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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