Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
O Petits Pains De Fraises.
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the garnish
Dissolve some of the jelly and pick about a dozen of the best strawberries.
Mask fancy dariole moulds with jelly; when partly set, garnish the surface with strawberries and angelica leaves.
Coat the garnish with half-set jelly and put on ice to firm up.
Make the strawberry mousse
Beat the eggs.
Crush the remaining strawberries in a basin with a wooden spoon and rub through a fine sieve.
Make about ½ cup of syrup with the loaf sugar.
Combine the fruit pulp, syrup, eggs, and Maraschino in a copper bowl and whisk over a saucepan of boiling water.
Dissolve the gelatine, previously soaked in water, and strain into the mixture.
Keep stirring over hot water until the mixture binds, then remove and beat a little longer over crushed ice.
When sufficiently cool, fill the moulds and leave on ice until set.
Turn out and serve
Immerse the moulds in tepid water, turn out neatly onto a dish, garnish with chopped wine jelly and glace cherries, and serve.
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.
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Wine + angelicatop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together52 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
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Sugar + angelicatop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together487 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Egg + angelicatop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together290 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Wine + sugartop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together9,581 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Strawberries
- Provide the flavour and pink colour of the set mould.
- Gelatine
- Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when turned out.
- Eggs
- Whisked over heat to add lightness and body to the mousse.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the mixture as a syrup.
- Maraschino
- Adds aroma and a touch of liqueur flavour.
The step that matters
Binding over hot water, then cooling. Gelatine must be stirred gently over hot water until the mixture just thickens, then cooled. If it sets too early or is too hot, the mixture will be lumpy or lose its airy texture, and it may not hold its shape when turned out.
Swap the angelica
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, egg, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Tarragonfits better
- Angelicathe original
Fit is the average pairing score against wine, egg, sugar. 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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