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Stewed Frogs' Legs

A dish of frog legs simmered in milk, cream, and butter, finished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Frogs' Legs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin the frogs' legs and soak them in milk for 15 minutes.

  2. Roll the legs in seasoned flour and sauté in hot butter for 3 minutes.

Stew and finish

  1. Cover the legs with hot water and stew until tender, about 20 minutes.

  2. Heat the cream to boiling, then stir in the butter mixed with flour and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the cream mixture to the saucepan with the frogs' legs and season with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley.

  4. Cook gently for 3 minutes 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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

Frogs' legs
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender through stewing.
Milk
Softens the legs during the 15-minute soak before cooking.
Flour
Coats the legs and thickens the cream sauce when mixed with butter.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the finished sauce.
Butter
Browns the floured legs and, mixed with flour, helps thicken the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter-flour mixture into the boiling cream. Flour must be fully dispersed in the hot cream and brought to a boil so it gelatinises and thickens the sauce evenly. Adding it lumpy or undercooked leaves a grainy, thin sauce with a raw floury taste.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, pepper, butter, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, pepper, butter, cream. 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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