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Fricasseed Frogs' Legs

Frog legs cooked in a browned butter sauce with water, egg yolks, and cream, served over buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fricasseed Frogs' Legs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Clean the frogs' legs and place them in a large saucepan with butter.

  2. Cook over medium heat until the butter begins to brown.

  3. Pour in the hot water, cover the pan, and stew for 25 minutes.

  4. Skim off most of the butter, then add salt and pepper to taste.

Thicken and serve

  1. Thicken the mixture with the egg yolks and cream.

  2. Remove from heat as soon as it begins to boil.

  3. Serve over hot buttered toast.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they 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

Frogs' legs
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender through gentle stewing in liquid.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the sauce and helping it thicken evenly with the yolks.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, and browning it first gives a nutty aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Remove from heat as soon as it begins to boil. Egg yolks can scramble and curdle if the sauce gets too hot after thickening. Stopping at the first boil keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

“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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