Skip to main content
Main

Poultry, a LA Tartare

A dish of poultry joints coated in egg and breadcrumbs, served with a mustard‑oil vinaigrette and garnished with pickled gherkins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,145 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the poultry

  1. Dip the poultry joints in egg and bread crumbs, then in clarified butter, and again in egg and bread crumbs. Set aside.

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the yolk of an egg for 2–3 minutes in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add 1 tablespoon dry mustard, pepper, coarse sea salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Slowly incorporate 8 tablespoons of salad oil, starting with drops and then in teaspoonfuls, beating well after each addition.

  4. Stir in 1 teaspoon vinegar and continue adding oil and vinegar until the sauce thickens to a custard‑like consistency.

  5. Taste and adjust vinegar if desired, noting that this will thin the sauce.

  6. Add the minced shallots, chopped tarragon, chopped chervil, and essence of anchovies to the sauce.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce onto a serving dish.

  2. Broil the poultry pieces over a clear fire until browned, about 10 minutes.

  3. Lay the broiled poultry on the sauce and garnish with minced pickled gherkins.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Bread + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Mustard + shallottop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together842 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Turkey + breadtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together15,427 recipes

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

Mustard and vinegar share little aroma chemistry, yet 14,067 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil into the sauce, giving it a thick, custard-like body.
Salad oil
Forms the bulk of the emulsified sauce, giving it richness and body.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating on the poultry joints when broiled.
Clarified butter
Carries heat and browning to the coated poultry, adding richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sauce's flavour and helps it thicken.
Shallots
Add a mild sharp onion flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the oil to the yolk. Oil must be added slowly, a few drops at first, while beating constantly. Adding it too fast prevents the yolk from emulsifying, and the sauce breaks into separated oil instead of thickening.

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, egg, bread, butter, pepper, vinegar, shallot):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Asparagusabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Chiveabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, egg, bread, butter, pepper, vinegar, shallot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.

You might also like

Illustration of Brown BreadIllustrationBrown Bread461 recipesIllustration of White BreadIllustrationWhite Bread80 recipesIllustration of Turkey SoupIllustrationTurkey Soup71 recipesIllustration of Bread OmeletteIllustrationBread Omelette60 recipes