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Crayfish Croutes, Ravigotte Style

A dish of bread croutons filled with seasoned crayfish and garnished with herbs and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Crayfish Croutes, Ravigotte Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the croutes

  1. Cut bread into pieces, ½ inch thick and 1½ inches wide, hollow out the center slightly.

  2. Fry the bread in clarified butter and drain on a cloth.

Make the filling

  1. Chop the crayfish tails or prawns finely and season with a little tartare sauce.

  2. Pound the blanched chervil, tarragon, and spinach leaves, pass through a fine sieve, and mix with tartare sauce.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place a little mustard and cress at the bottom of each croute.

  2. Dress the chopped crayfish or prawns in a pyramidal form on top.

  3. Gently mask the croutes with the mixture, sprinkle with lobster coral and cayenne.

  4. Garnish with small cress 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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Chervil + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together78 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tarragon + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together112 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Sauce + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Crayfish tails
Provide the main seafood filling with a delicate, sweet flavour.
Bread
Forms the crisp base that holds the filling.
Butter
Frying in clarified butter gives the bread a golden, crisp surface and rich flavour.
Tartare sauce
Adds creamy moisture and tangy acidity that bind and season the filling.
Lobster coral
Adds rich, briny flavour and a vivid colour to the finished croutes.

The step that matters

Frying the bread. Bread fried in clarified butter must be drained well and kept crisp; clarified butter has no milk solids to burn, so it browns evenly at a steady heat. Soggy or greasy croutes will not hold the filling well.

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crayfish, sauce, tarragon, chervil, butter, pepper, lobster):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crayfish, sauce, tarragon, chervil, butter, pepper, lobster. 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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