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A Capilotade

A stew of leftover roast fowl and lean ham with herbs, stock, roux, cayenne pepper, 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. Combine fowl trimmings and lean ham with thyme, parsley, and mace tied in a bundle in a stew-pan.

  2. Add 1 pint of stock and let it boil slowly for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture and set aside the liquid.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a clean stew-pan, then add enough flour to create a roux.

  2. Pour in the reserved liquid and bring to a boil for a few minutes.

  3. Strain again.

  4. Return to the stew-pan.

Finish the stew

  1. Add the fowl pieces.

  2. Season with cayenne pepper 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover roast fowl
Provides the main cooked meat and flavor of the stew.
Butter
Fat that cooks with flour to form a roux that thickens the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter into a roux.
Stock
Liquid base that carries the flavor of the stew.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

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