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Larks a LA Minute

Larks à la Minute is a dish of larks stuffed with livers, sautéed mushrooms, and simmered in broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Larks a LA Minute

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stuff the larks with their livers.

  2. Dust the larks with flour and season with salt, pepper, parsley, and shallot.

Cook

  1. Sauté mushrooms at the beginning, ensuring they do not stew too long.

  2. Stew mushrooms for 10 minutes.

  3. Place the larks in a pan, add broth, and cover.

  4. Cook until done, then serve hot.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Larks
The main protein, whose own fat and stuffed livers make the meat rich and tender.
Mushrooms
Release moisture and earthy flavour into the pan as they cook.
Broth
Adds moisture and savoury flavour while the larks cook covered.
Flour
A light coating that helps the larks brown and lightly thickens the pan juices.
Shallot
Adds a mild, sweet aromatic flavour to the larks.

The step that matters

Keep the mushrooms from stewing too long. Prolonged cooking drives out water and makes mushrooms soft and grey, diluting their flavour. Sautéing briefly first browns them and concentrates their taste.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pepper, shallot, mushroom):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, shallot, mushroom. 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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