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Caviar Aux Ecrevisses.

A chilled appetizer of Russian caviar, prawns, olives, and herbs served on toasted stale bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Caviar Aux Ecrevisses.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the croutes

  1. Cut stale bread into slices ¼ inch thick.

  2. Use a round cutter to stamp out 8 rounds, each 1½ inches in diameter.

  3. Fry the rounds in clarified butter until golden brown.

  4. Drain on paper or cloth and let cool.

Assemble

  1. In a bowl, combine caviar, shallot, lemon juice, cayenne, olives, prawns, gherkins, and parsley.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Russian caviar
Provides the rich, salty flavour that is the centrepiece of the dish.
Stale bread
Dry, sturdy bread holds its shape and crisps when fried, forming a base for the topping.
Clarified butter
Fries the croutes to an even golden brown and adds a nutty, rich flavour.
Prawns
Supply a sweet, tender texture that contrasts with the crisp croutes and gherkins.
Gherkins
Add acidity and crunch that cut through the richness of the caviar.

The step that matters

Frying the croutes. Bread fried in clarified butter browns quickly once the surface is hot, and it can burn before the centre crisps. Draining well and cooling them keeps them crisp rather than soggy under the topping.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (caviar, lemon, pepper, olive, parsley, bread, butter):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits less well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against caviar, lemon, pepper, olive, parsley, bread, 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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