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A Capilotade

A stew of leftover fowl and lean ham thickened with butter and flour, seasoned with thyme, parsley, mace, cayenne, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,036 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a stew-pan, combine the fowl trimmings and a little lean ham.

  2. Add thyme, parsley, and a few blades of mace tied together.

  3. Pour in 1 pint of stock and let it boil slowly for 30 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture into another pot.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a stew-pan, then add enough flour to absorb it.

  2. Pour in the strained liquid and boil for a few minutes.

  3. Strain again through a sieve, return to the stew-pan, and add the fowl pieces.

Finish

  1. Season with a pinch of cayenne and a splash of lemon juice.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Thyme + macetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,113 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Parsley + macetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover fowl
Provides the main meat and body of the stew, releasing savory flavor into the liquid.
Lean ham
Adds savory, salty depth to the stock as it simmers.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries flavor and gives the stew its moisture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and carries flour to form a smooth thickening base.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells with heat, giving the sauce body.

The step that matters

Adding the strained liquid to the butter and flour. Flour must be cooked in the butter before liquid goes in, or the mixture can clump and taste raw. Pouring gradually while stirring and boiling a few minutes lets the starch swell evenly and thicken the sauce smoothly.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, thyme, parsley, butter, flour, lemon):

  1. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  2. Sagebetter flavor fit
  3. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, thyme, parsley, butter, flour, lemon. 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.

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