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Croustades a LA Boche

Small pastry cases filled with anchovy and vegetable mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,547 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Croustades a LA Boche

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the pastry

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. On a pastry board, make a well in 3 ounces of flour and add 1½ ounces of butter and 1 egg yolk.

  3. Mix in 1½ ounces of grated Parmesan cheese and ½ cup of water to form a paste.

  4. Roll the paste out as thin as possible and butter the patty pans.

  5. Line the pans with the paste, prick the bottoms, and fill with raw rice.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake until pale brown, then cool and empty the cases.

Make and fill

  1. For the filling, remove oil from 2 fillets of anchovy and cut into quarter‑inch pieces.

  2. Mix with 1½ tablespoons of finely cut and cooked macédoine of vegetables and sprinkle with tarragon vinegar.

  3. Add just enough mayonnaise sauce to moisten and arrange in a pyramid in each case.

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. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Parmesan cheese + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together879 recipes

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

  4. Parmesan cheese + anchovytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the paste that holds the cases' shape.
Butter
Adds fat, giving the pastry tenderness and a short, crisp bite.
Egg yolk
Binds the paste and adds richness to the dough.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps the pastry brown while baking.
Anchovy
Provides the salty, savoury flavour at the heart of the filling.

The step that matters

Rolling the paste thin and pricking the bottoms. A thin paste bakes crisp and holds its shape, while pricking lets steam escape so the base does not puff or warp. Filling with raw rice keeps the walls from slumping as they set.

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, egg, parmesan cheese, rice, anchovy, vinegar):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Tarragonthe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg, parmesan cheese, rice, anchovy, vinegar. 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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