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Frog Broth

A broth made from frog hind legs, carrot, celery, leek, salt, water, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Frog Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the hind-legs of frogs in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Drain and place them in a saucepan over low heat.

  3. Stir occasionally until they turn yellow, then chop the flesh finely.

Make the broth

  1. Add the chopped flesh back to the pan with carrot, celery, leek, and salt.

  2. Cover with water and simmer for about 2 hours.

  3. Mash the mixture through a colander, then stir in butter until well mixed.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together848 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Carrot + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,083 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Frog hind-legs
Provides the main flesh that gives the broth its body and savory flavor.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aroma as it softens during the long simmer.
Celery
Adds savory, herbal aroma to the broth as it cooks.
Leek
Adds a mild, onion-like aroma and sweetness as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the finished broth rich and smooth.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, butter):

  1. Parsnipfits about as well
  2. Leekthe original
  3. Turnipfits about as well
  4. Potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, butter. 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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