Skip to main content
Main

Fried Frogs

Fried frogs are hind quarters marinated in vinegar and herbs, coated in flour, and pan‑fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,675 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Frogs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the hind quarters of frogs in vinegar with fine herbs, spices, and coarse sea salt for 1 hour.

  2. Drain the frogs and coat them in flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the floured frogs until golden brown.

  2. Serve with fine parsley.

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. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,652 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Hind quarters of frogs
The main protein, which the coating and frying turn crisp outside and tender inside.
Vinegar
Adds acidity during the soak, bringing a sharp tang to the meat.
Flour
Forms a coating that browns and crisps when fried.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown. Frying at the right heat browns the flour coating into a crisp crust while the meat cooks through. Too hot and the coating burns before the meat is done; too cool and the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, flour. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes