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Fricassee of Frogs

A French-style stew of frog hindquarters simmered in butter, herbs, wine, stock, cream, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Fricassee of Frogs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the frogs

  1. Skin and prepare the hind quarters of the frogs.

  2. Blanch them and place in cold water; drain.

Make the fricassee

  1. In a stewpan, melt butter and add garlic, parsley, onions, chives, sweet herbs, and spices.

  2. Soak the frogs in the mixture over low heat without browning.

  3. Add wine, stock, and salt; stew slowly for 20 minutes.

  4. Stir in cream, egg yolk, and lemon juice before serving.

Serve

  1. Garnish with lemon.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Thickens the cream sauce and gives it a smooth, rich body.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the sauce.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds fat and a rounded flavour to the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and depth to the liquid as the frogs stew.
Lemon juice
Brightens the sauce with acidity and balances the cream.

The step that matters

Stir in cream and egg yolk off the heat. Egg yolk can curdle and turn grainy if it is exposed to high heat. Adding it near the end, with the sauce kept off a strong boil, lets it thicken smoothly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, garlic, parsley, onion, chive, white wine, cream):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, garlic, parsley, onion, chive, white wine, 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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