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Farcied Lettuce

Lettuce leaves stuffed with chicken farce, wrapped in pork, simmered for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Farcied Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Boil the lettuce until tender.

  2. Place the boiled lettuce in cold water for a moment.

  3. Dry the lettuce with a cloth and press out all moisture.

  4. Divide each lettuce partly in two without allowing them to fall apart.

Stuff and tie

  1. Fill each lettuce with 2 ounces of chicken farce.

  2. Cover the filled lettuce with the leaves.

  3. Shape the filled lettuce neatly.

  4. Wrap the shaped lettuce.

  5. Tie the wrapped lettuce with thin pieces of pork.

Simmer and serve

  1. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

  2. Remove the pork.

  3. Serve with Spanish 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. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lettuce + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Lettuce + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together821 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Its leaves wrap and hold the filling, and cooking softens them until they are tender and pliable.
Chicken farce
Forms the savory filling that sets as it cooks, giving the stuffed lettuce body and substance.
Thin pieces of pork
Hold the wrapped lettuce together during cooking and add a little savory flavor to the dish.

The step that matters

Dry the lettuce and press out all moisture. Excess water left in the leaves dilutes the flavor and can make the wrapping soggy, and it can keep the filling from setting properly during the long simmer.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, chicken, pork, pepper, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, chicken, pork, pepper, butter. 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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