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Chicory-puree, with Croutons

A creamy chicory puree made by boiling chicory, sautéing with butter and flour, simmering with broth and milk, then thickening with egg yolk and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chicory-puree, with Croutons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicory

  1. Boil chicory heads in salted water until only the white parts remain.

  2. Drain and press out excess water, then chop the chicory.

Make the puree

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add chopped chicory and fry for a few minutes, stirring frequently.

  3. Sprinkle flour over the chicory, then moisten with broth and boiled milk.

  4. Stir until boiling, season to taste, and reduce heat to simmer for 30 minutes.

  5. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve or tammy.

  6. Thicken with a liaison of egg yolks mixed with cream.

Serve

  1. Serve with croutons.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Chicory + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together47 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicory + milktop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Chicory
Provides the main vegetable body and bitter flavour of the puree.
Butter
Adds fat and richness while the chicory softens and fries.
Flour
Lightly thickens the liquid as it cooks with the chicory.
Broth
Supplies the liquid that cooks the chicory into a pourable puree.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavour of the puree.
Egg yolks (in the method)
Thicken the finished puree into a smooth, velvety texture.

The step that matters

Thicken with the egg liaison. Egg yolks set when heated, so the liaison can curdle or turn grainy if the puree is boiling. Add it off the heat or on very low heat, stirring constantly, to keep the texture smooth.

“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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