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Breakfast

Breakfast — Fried Frogs, Fried Potatoes, Corn Gems, Boiled Eggs.

A breakfast of fried frogs, fried potatoes, cornmeal fritters, and boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Breakfast — Fried Frogs, Fried Potatoes, Corn Gems, Boiled Eggs.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and prepare the frogs for frying.

  2. Peel and cut the potatoes into slices.

Fry

  1. Fry the potato slices until golden brown.

  2. Mix cornmeal with water to form a batter.

  3. Fry spoonfuls of batter in hot oil until golden.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the eggs until hard.

  2. Peel the boiled eggs 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. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Frogs
Provide the main protein, and frying gives them a crisp, browned outer surface.
Potatoes
Provide starch that fries to a golden, crisp exterior with a soft interior.
Cornmeal
Forms a batter that fries into a crisp, golden crust.
Eggs
Boiling sets the proteins, giving the whites and yolks a firm texture.

The step that matters

Fry spoonfuls of batter in hot oil until golden. The oil must be hot so the batter sets and browns quickly on the outside. If the oil is too cool, the batter soaks up grease and turns heavy and soggy instead of crisp.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter. 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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