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Tarragon Creams

Poached custard-like creams flavored with tarragon, served with hollandaise sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: White pepper and tarragon work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 139 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Tarragon Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the egg whites and yolks together with the cream, white pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Stir in the chopped tarragon.

Poach

  1. Pour the mixture into prepared molds with additional chopped tarragon and truffles.

  2. Place the molds in a saucepan of boiling water, ensuring the water reaches three-quarters of the height of the molds.

  3. Boil the water, then poach for about 20 minutes at the side of the fire until the creams are set.

Serve

  1. Turn out onto a warm dish and serve with hollandaise sauce around them.

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. White pepper + tarragontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Egg + truffletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,604 recipes

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

  3. Cream + tarragontop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together574 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Egg + white peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Egg + tarragontop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,789 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the cream into a firm, sliceable custard as they coagulate with gentle heat.
Cream
Adds richness and a soft, tender texture to the set custard.
Chopped tarragon
Contributes its aromatic, anise-like flavour to the creams.

The step that matters

Poaching at a gentle heat. Eggs set into a smooth custard only when heated slowly. Vigorous boiling or overcooking can make the proteins tighten, leaving the creams grainy, watery, or rubbery.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, tarragon, truffle):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, tarragon, truffle. 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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