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French Fricassee of Frogs

A French-style stew of frog legs cooked in butter, flour, wine, lemon juice, and seasoned with salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

French Fricassee of Frogs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the frogs' legs thoroughly.

  2. Melt butter in a pan over medium heat.

  3. Add flour to the melted butter and stir to form a roux.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the frogs' legs and cook until browned.

  2. Pour in white wine and lemon juice, then simmer until cooked through.

  3. Garnish with chopped parsley before serving.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Frogs' legs
Provide the main protein, which browns and becomes tender when simmered in the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor, and helps start the roux.
Flour
Combined with melted butter to form a roux that thickens the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce during simmering.
Lemon juice
Adds brightness and acidity that balances the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering until cooked through. Frogs' legs must be fully cooked, and simmering in the wine and lemon sauce cooks them gently while keeping the meat moist. Stopping too early leaves the meat undercooked, while overcooking makes it tough and dry.

“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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