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Mayonnaise of Plovers' Eggs

A chilled appetizer of lettuce, mayonnaise, plovers' eggs, aspic, tomato, and chervil served in small china shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 396 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mayonnaise of Plovers' Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble the shells

  1. Place some shredded lettuce in each small china shell.

  2. Add a little mayonnaise sauce over the lettuce.

  3. Cut the hard-boiled plovers' eggs into quarters and arrange them in the shells.

  4. Top each with a layer of chopped aspic.

Garnish and serve

  1. Decorate around with fine sliced tomato.

  2. Finish with a tiny sprig of chervil on top.

  3. Serve to each guest.

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. Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lettuce + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Tomato + cherviltop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Sauce + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + cherviltop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together262 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise sauce
Adds richness and a creamy, moist coating over the lettuce and eggs.
Hard-boiled plovers' eggs
Provide the main protein and the firm, mild-flavored centre of the salad.
Chopped aspic
Sets into a savoury jelly layer that holds its shape and adds a cool, glossy texture.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, sauce, egg, chervil):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, sauce, egg, chervil. 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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