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Stuffed Lettuces

Lettuce leaves stuffed with fowl forcemeat, simmered in veal broth and fowl consommé.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and veal work together. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 383 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Stuffed Lettuces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuces

  1. Blanch the lettuces, cool them, and strain off all the water, pressing them slightly.

  2. Cut each lettuce down the center without completely separating.

Stuff and cook

  1. Place 1 tablespoon of fowl forcemeat in the center of each lettuce and tie them up in their original shapes.

  2. Put the stuffed lettuces into a saucepan with ½ pint each of veal broth and fowl consommé.

  3. Boil for two hours.

Serve

  1. Remove the lettuces and place them in a soup tureen.

  2. Strain the stock over the lettuces and fill the tureen with more rich soup.

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. Lettuce + vealtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together383 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuces
Serve as the edible wrapper that holds the forcemeat while it cooks.
Fowl forcemeat
Provides a seasoned, tender filling that stays moist inside the lettuce.
Veal broth
Simmering liquid that gives the lettuces and stock a savory, meaty flavor.
Fowl consommé
Adds clear, concentrated poultry flavor to the cooking liquid and final soup.

The step that matters

Strain off all the water after blanching. Excess water left in the lettuce dilutes the broth and makes the stuffed leaves soggy and loose, so pressing them gently to remove moisture helps them hold their shape when tied and simmered.

“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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