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Fried Frogs, French Style

A dish of frogs seasoned with pepper, salt, parsley, olive oil, lemon juice, coated in batter and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fried Frogs, French Style

2 dozen dressed frogs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the feet of the frogs and wash them well.

  2. Wipe the frogs with a cloth and place them on a dish.

  3. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, chopped parsley, olive oil, and lemon juice.

  4. Chill the dish on ice for 30 minutes.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip each frog into the frying batter.

  2. Fry in hot fat until golden brown.

  3. Drain, arrange on a plate, garnish with parsley, and serve.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  5. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Frying batter
Forms a crisp, golden coating that protects the frog meat while it fries.
Hot fat
Cooks the coated frogs quickly and browns the batter through direct heat transfer.
Olive oil
Carries the seasonings and adds moisture and richness to the frog meat.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the frog meat.

The step that matters

Fry in hot fat until golden brown. If the fat is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil instead of crisping, leaving a greasy coating and undercooked meat. Frying at a steady high temperature seals the batter quickly and keeps the coating crisp.

“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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