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Dessert

Blanc-Manger

A sweet almond dessert made with calf stock, sugar, lemon zest, coriander, and almonds, set into molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,498 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Blanc-Manger

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the calves' feet

  1. Cleave the calves' feet in two.

  2. Remove the large bones.

  3. Soak the calves' feet.

  4. Blanch the calves' feet.

  5. Place the feet in a pot with 3 quarts of water.

  6. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  7. Skim off the fat.

  8. Cook for 2-3 hours.

  9. Strain the stock through a wet cloth.

Make the almond mixture

  1. Combine sugar, a little water, lemon zest, and coriander seed in a pan.

  2. Infuse the mixture for 30 minutes.

  3. Remove the coriander and lemon from the pan.

  4. Mix the sugar with the beaten almonds.

  5. Pass the mixture through a cloth several times.

  6. Add enough stock to achieve a delicate consistency.

  7. Pour into small pots, molds, or lemon/orange skins without adding salt.

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 + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

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

  2. Almond + coriandertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together563 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Calves' feet
Release gelatin into the stock, which sets the jelly.
Sweet almonds
Provide the main almond flavour and body in the mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the savoury stock.

The step that matters

Add enough stock to achieve a delicate consistency. Gelatin from the calves' feet sets the jelly, so too much stock makes it soft and too little makes it stiff. Adding stock gradually and checking the set keeps the texture delicate.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, coriander):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Cashew nutfits about as well
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, coriander. 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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