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Menu for a Dinner of Six

Truffle-infused fowl croquettes served with mashed potatoes, bacon, asparagus, and anchovy vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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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 ↓

Menu for a Dinner of Six

6-8 croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Save all bones, skin, and scraps to make broth.

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

  3. Melt butter in a saucepan, stir in flour, moisten with stock, and add the minced mixture.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and thyme; stir over heat for 3-4 minutes.

  5. Remove from heat and mix in beaten eggs and lime juice.

  6. Spread the mixture on a large dish and let it cool until stiff.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape into 6-8 egg-shaped croquettes, placing a piece of truffle in each center.

  2. Bread-crumb the croquettes and fry until light gold.

Plate and serve

  1. Prepare a circle of mashed potatoes on a serving dish and arrange croquettes around it.

  2. Place crispy fried bacon between each croquette and a slice of truffle on top.

  3. Cut off green ends of canned asparagus and heat gently in veloute made with chicken broth, flavored with almond and cream.

  4. Add a few drops of anchovy vinegar and pour 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

Fowl meat
Provides the main minced body and savory flavor of the croquette filling.
Truffles
Supply the aroma and distinctive flavor that define the dish.
Eggs
Bind the minced mixture so it sets firm enough to shape and fry.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a paste that helps hold the filling together.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor while the flour is cooked into the base.
Cold boiled tongue
Adds meaty texture and body to the minced filling.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool until stiff before shaping. Egg-bound filling is soft when warm; it must chill and firm up, or the croquettes will slump and break apart when breaded and fried.

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.

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