Skip to main content
Main

Fricandeau of Beef

A savory beef dish with fowl, tongue, truffles, and a creamy broth, served with mashed potatoes and asparagus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 305 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fricandeau of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the croquette mixture

  1. Make a clear white broth from bones, skin, and scraps.

  2. Mince fowl meat, cold boiled tongue, and truffles very finely and mix them.

  3. Melt butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour.

  4. Moisten with broth. Add the minced mixture.

  5. Season with salt, pepper, and thyme.

  6. Stir over heat for 3-4 minutes. Remove from heat.

  7. Mix in beaten eggs and strained lime juice.

  8. Spread the mixture on a large dish.

  9. Let it cool until stiff.

Shape and fry the croquettes

  1. Shape into 6-8 egg-shaped croquettes.

  2. Place a piece of truffle in each.

  3. Bread crumb the croquettes.

  4. Fry until light gold.

Make the asparagus sauce

  1. Cut off green ends of asparagus stalks from a tin. Set aside.

  2. Heat remaining asparagus stalks in chicken broth. Press out juice. Return to broth.

  3. Thicken broth with butter and flour. Stir in cream.

  4. Add asparagus points. Heat.

Assemble and serve

  1. Prepare a circle of mashed potatoes on a serving dish.

  2. Arrange croquettes around it.

  3. Add crispy fried bacon curls between croquettes.

  4. Add a slice of truffle on each.

  5. Pour the mixture into the center of the potato circle.

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. Thyme + limetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Bind the minced mixture so the croquettes hold their shape when fried.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and adds a rich, smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, cohesive base for the mixture and sauce.
Truffles
Contribute a strong, earthy aroma and flavour to the croquettes.
Fowl meat
Provides the main protein that sets firm when cooled and fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool until stiff. The mixture must set firm before shaping; if it is still warm or soft, the croquettes will slump and may break open when fried. Cooling lets the proteins and starch settle into a workable mass.

Swap the lime

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, truffle, butter, flour, pepper, thyme, egg):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limethe original
  3. Red currantfits about as well
  4. Avocadofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, truffle, butter, flour, pepper, thyme, egg. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesAsparagus SoupAsparagus Soup179 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes