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Vegetables a LA Jardiniere

A mixed vegetable casserole with a butter‑flour sauce and butter dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,053 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Vegetables a LA Jardiniere

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Boil each vegetable separately in water to half cover, adding butter and salt to taste.

  2. In a pan, heat 3 tablespoons of butter and stir in 2 tablespoons of flour, frying until golden brown.

  3. Pour a little of the cooking water from the vegetables into the flour mixture and stir until smooth; cook for a few minutes.

Combine and sauce

  1. Combine all the vegetables in a casserole dish, mixing well and placing the cauliflower on top.

  2. Pour the sauce over the vegetables and cook slowly for 5 minutes.

  3. Add chopped parsley to the vegetables after removing from the casserole dish and mix well.

Make and cook the dumplings

  1. For the butter dumplings, cream 1 scant tablespoon of butter and stir in 1 egg thoroughly. Add grated nutmeg, salt, and enough breadcrumbs to make a soft batter.

  2. Form the batter into balls using 1 teaspoon for each ball.

  3. Cook the dumplings gently in salted water for 10 minutes and use as a garnish on top of the vegetables.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Peas + asparagustop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Cauliflower + asparagustop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Beans + asparagustop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together292 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Peas + cauliflowertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and forms the base of the browned flour sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce once cooked briefly.
Eggs
Binds the dumpling batter so the balls hold their shape while cooking.
Breadcrumbs
Absorbs moisture and gives the dumpling batter a soft, firm body.
Carrots
Add sweetness and colour to the mixed vegetables.

The step that matters

Frying the flour in butter until golden brown. Cooking flour in butter drives off raw starch taste and builds a nutty colour; stopping early leaves the sauce pasty, while overcooking it burns and turns it bitter.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, beans, peas, cauliflower, asparagus, butter, flour):

  1. Celeryabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Turmericabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Tarragonabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, beans, peas, cauliflower, asparagus, butter, flour. 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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