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A Ragout of Endive

A ragout of endive, celery, asparagus, and a white wine sauce with butter, flour, egg yolks, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Endive and asparagus share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 33 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

A Ragout of Endive

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Soak the endive in water for 2-3 hours.

  2. Chop the celery into 2-3 inch pieces.

  3. In a saucepan, combine celery, mace, whole pepper, and water; stew until tender.

  4. Add asparagus and simmer until done.

  5. Drain the endive and separate the leaves, keeping one head whole.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, boil the endive in white wine until tender.

  2. Add butter rolled in flour, cover, and simmer.

  3. Mix egg yolks with cream, salt, and nutmeg; stir into the sauce until thick.

Serve

  1. Place the whole endive head in the center of a dish, arrange celery and asparagus around it.

  2. Pour the sauce over the endive and serve.

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. Endive + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Endive + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together160 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Celery + asparagustop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together378 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Endive
Its leaves become tender and mild when boiled, forming the body of the ragout.
Butter
Flour-coated butter melts into the liquid and thickens it, adding richness.
Egg yolks
Egg yolks thicken the sauce as they gently heat, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Cream
Cream adds moisture and richness, softening the sauce and mellowing its flavor.
White wine
Wine cooks the endive and adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the sauce.
Celery
Celery stews until tender, adding moisture and a mild, savory vegetable flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolk mixture into the sauce. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can curdle if the sauce is too hot or boiling. Stir steadily and keep the heat low until the sauce thickens.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (endive, white wine, butter, celery, pepper, asparagus, egg):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against endive, white wine, butter, celery, pepper, asparagus, egg. 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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