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Gratinated Cbusts with Lettuce

A gratin of lettuce with pork, veal, carrots, onion, parsley, and broth, topped with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Gratinated Cbusts with Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Trim and wash the lettuce in cold water, then parboil for 10 minutes.

  2. Immerse in cold water and press dry.

  3. Arrange and tie the leaves to keep their shape.

Braise

  1. In a deep, flat saucepan, layer with fat pork, veal trimmings, carrots, and onion.

  2. Add the lettuce and a faggot of parsley with bay leaf and cloves.

  3. Cover with more fat pork and moisten with broth to cover.

  4. Bring to a boil, then cover and cook slowly until tender.

  5. Carefully remove the lettuce, cut into 2 or 3 parts lengthwise.

Bake and serve

  1. In a deep baking dish, layer toasted bread and lettuce until full.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Strain the cooking gravy and pour over the lettuce and toast.

  4. Bake in the oven at 300°F (150°C) until nicely browned.

  5. Remove excess grease before serving with a soup tureen of consomme.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender and silky during slow braising.
Fat pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour that enriches the braising liquid and moistens the lettuce.
Veal trimmings
Contribute gelatin and savoury depth to the broth, giving body to the gravy.
Broth
Provides the cooking liquid that tenderises the lettuce and forms the gravy.
Toasted bread
Soaks up the strained gravy, adding structure and texture between the lettuce layers.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until tender. Gentle simmering breaks down collagen in the veal and pork into gelatin, making the lettuce tender and the gravy rich. A hard boil toughens meat and can make the lettuce fall apart.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, pork, veal, carrot, parsley, clove, pepper):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, pork, veal, carrot, parsley, clove, pepper. 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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