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To Dress Crayfish

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

To Dress Crayfish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash the crayfish in cold water.

  2. Remove the gut from the tail of each crayfish.

  3. Prepare a marinade with equal parts water and vinegar, and add white wine, pepper, salt, and onion.

  4. Bring the marinade to a boil and add the crayfish, boiling for 10 minutes or less based on size.

  5. For hot serving, place them in a napkin; for cold, pile them up and garnish with parsley.

  6. To stew, boil the crayfish in saltwater, then pick the meat from the tails.

  7. In a stewpan, combine the meat with butter and mushrooms, moisten with fish stock, and simmer gently.

  8. Beat the egg yolks with cream and chopped parsley, then add to the stew, stirring continuously until done.

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. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crayfish, vinegar, white wine, pepper, butter, mushroom, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crayfish, vinegar, white wine, pepper, butter, mushroom, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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