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Broiled Frogs' Legs

Frogs are cleaned, seasoned with salt and pepper, and broiled until cooked, served with maître d'hôtel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,263 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Broiled Frogs' Legs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Lay frogs on their backs and cut from the neck along the belly, then across the middle.

  2. Remove entrails and cut away the head, leaving only the back and legs.

  3. Skin and chop off the feet, then wash thoroughly and blanch in scalding salted water.

Season and broil

  1. Place on a dish and pour over olive oil seasoned with salt and pepper.

  2. Turn frogs in the seasoning several times and broil for 3-4 minutes on one side.

  3. Turn and broil for a total of about 7 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with maître d'hôtel sauce.

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. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

  2. Olive + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,568 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + saucetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Pepper and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 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 meat, which cooks quickly and becomes tender under high heat.
Olive oil
Carries the seasoning and keeps the surface moist so the meat does not dry out while broiling.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and draws flavour into the surface before broiling.

The step that matters

Turning and broiling for the total time. Broiling is intense and fast, so the legs can dry out or scorch if left too long. Turning the frogs and watching the time keeps the meat moist and evenly cooked.

“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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