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Crayfish Cheeses with Jelly

A chilled appetizer of diced crayfish, anchovies, and capers mixed with mayonnaise and aspic, served in molded aspic with gherkins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Crayfish Cheeses with Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the crayfish and remove the flesh from the tails and claws.

  2. Cut the crayfish meat and anchovies into small cubes.

  3. Mix the crayfish, anchovies, and capers together.

  4. Thicken the mixture with mayonnaise sauce and a little aspic jelly.

Mould and set

  1. Prepare dariole moulds by placing sliced gherkins at the bottom, dipped in half-set aspic jelly.

  2. Mask the sides of the moulds with a layer of mayonnaise and aspic.

  3. Fill the moulds with the crayfish mixture and mask the top with mayonnaise.

  4. Let the moulds sit in ice for an hour.

Serve

  1. To serve, turn out the cheeses and garnish with 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. Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Crayfish + saucetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together195 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Capers + saucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Crayfish + caperstop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together31 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Crayfish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together159 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Crayfish
Forms the main body of the cheese, giving it its substance and savoury flavour.
Mayonnaise sauce
Binds the filling and adds richness and a creamy texture.
Aspic jelly
Sets the mixture and holds the cheese together when turned out, giving a firm, clean shape.
Anchovies
Adds a salty, savoury depth that seasons the crayfish filling.
Capers
Contribute a sharp, briny acidity that cuts the richness of the mayonnaise.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with mayonnaise and aspic. Aspic must be added while it is only partly set, so it blends in and thickens the filling evenly. If it is too warm the mixture stays loose, and if it is too cold it sets in lumps and the cheese may not hold its shape when turned out.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crayfish, capers, sauce):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Celeryfits less well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against crayfish, capers, sauce. 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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