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Fried Frogs, French Style

Fried frogs prepared with pepper, sea salt, parsley, olive oil, lemon juice, and a batter, then fried in fat or clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fried Frogs, French Style

2 dozen dressed frogs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the frogs

  1. Remove the feet from the frogs and wash them well.

  2. Dress the frogs neatly by inserting the stump of each leg along the shin of the other leg.

  3. Wipe the frogs with a cloth and place them on a dish.

Season and chill

  1. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, chopped parsley, olive oil, and lemon juice.

  2. Chill the dish on ice for 30 minutes.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip each frog into the frying batter.

  2. Fry in hot fat or clarified butter until light brown.

  3. Drain the frogs, dish them up, garnish with fried parsley, 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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Frogs
The main protein, which the batter coats and the hot fat cooks through.
Frying batter
Forms a crisp, golden coating that seals in moisture during frying.
Fat or clarified butter
Conducts heat for frying and gives the coating its browning and rich flavour.
Olive oil
Adds fat and carries the seasonings across the surface of the frogs.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild flavour of the frogs.

The step that matters

Fry in hot fat until light brown. If the fat is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisping. Frying only until light brown keeps the frogs tender and prevents the coating from scorching before the meat is cooked.

“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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