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Stewed Frogs

A dish of frogs sautéed in butter, wine, flour, egg yolks, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Stewed Frogs

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the frogs and sauté until they are cooked through.

  3. Pour in the white wine and simmer for a few minutes.

  4. Just before removing from heat, stir in the flour, beaten egg yolks, and chopped parsley, then mix well and serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. White wine + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Frogs
Provide the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks through.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness as they set gently with the heat.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the sauce clings to the frogs.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma while simmering with the butter and frogs.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour and carries the heat for sautéing the frogs.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can scramble if they get too hot. Adding them just before removing the pot from heat, and stirring constantly, keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, white wine, egg, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, white wine, egg, flour. 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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