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Sucking Pig En Blanquette

A white sauce stew of sliced roast pork, mushrooms, and broth, finished with egg yolks and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and white wine 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 ↓

Sucking Pig En Blanquette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the skin from the cold roast pig and slice the meat into small pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan and add the mushrooms, cooking for 3-4 minutes without browning.

  2. Stir in the flour and toss gently.

  3. Add the parsley, bay leaf, mace, salt, pepper, broth, and white wine.

  4. Bring to a gentle boil and reduce by one-third.

  5. Remove the parsley and mace.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the meat and bring to a simmer.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg yolks and lemon juice.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the sauce into a creamy, velvety texture when stirred in.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the base in which the mushrooms and flour cook.
Flour
Thickens the sauce slightly as it cooks into the butter and liquid.
Button mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and a tender texture to the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth as the liquid reduces.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated, but if the sauce is too hot or boils after adding them, they can scramble and curdle. Keep the sauce at a gentle simmer and stir constantly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, mushroom, flour, parsley, mace, veal, white wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, mushroom, flour, parsley, mace, veal, white wine. 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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