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Frogs' Legs

Frogs' legs are boiled, then fried or broiled, served with herbs and lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Frogs' Legs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin the hind legs of the frogs and place them in boiling salted water with a little lemon juice for 5 minutes.

  2. Drain and wipe the legs dry.

Fry

  1. Fry the fat from the salt pork in a pan.

  2. Dip the frogs' legs in beaten egg, then in flour, and fry until golden brown.

  3. Alternatively, dip them in bread crumbs, season with pepper and coarse sea salt, dip in beaten egg, then in bread crumbs, and fry in hot fat until golden brown.

  4. You can also broil them or stew in a little water seasoned with salt, pepper, and herbs until tender.

  5. Let the water boil out, add a bit of butter, and let them brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with parsley, watercress or peppergrass, and lettuce.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Hind legs of frogs
The main protein; cooking by simmering in salted water makes the meat tender before frying.
Beaten egg
Binds the flour or crumb coating to the legs so it adheres during frying.
Flour
Forms a dry first coating that helps the egg and crumbs stick and promotes browning.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp outer crust that browns when fried in hot fat.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the legs brown at the end of cooking.

The step that matters

Drain and wipe the legs dry before coating. Surface moisture keeps flour and egg from sticking and steams the coating instead of letting it crisp and brown in hot fat.

“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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