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Endive in a Puree

A creamy puree of boiled endive mixed with consommé, béchamel, egg yolk, and optional cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Endive in a Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the endive

  1. Wash endive in several waters.

  2. Boil a large pot of water and add endive with a handful of salt.

  3. Skim the water and boil until endive is tender.

  4. Drain endive in a sieve for 2-3 minutes.

  5. Rub endive through the sieve into a dish.

  6. Let it drain for an hour or more.

Finish the puree

  1. In a stewpan, stir endive with a bit of butter over heat.

  2. Add 3-4 tablespoons of consommé and stir until it thickens.

  3. Mix in 3 tablespoons of béchamel sauce and heat for a minute.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in egg yolk, cream, salt, and sugar if desired.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Endive
Forms the main body of the puree once cooked and rubbed smooth.
Consommé
Adds liquid and savory flavour, and thickens as it is stirred over heat.
Béchamel sauce
Adds body and a creamy texture that helps the puree hold together.
Egg yolk
Enriches the puree and sets slightly with gentle heat, giving a smoother, richer texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the warm puree.

The step that matters

Remove from heat before adding the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens by gentle heat and can scramble if it meets a hot pan. Stirring it in off the heat keeps the puree smooth and silky.

Swap the endive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce, egg, cream, sugar):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Endivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, egg, cream, sugar. 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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