Skip to main content
Main

Capon with Rice, Provence Fashion

A capon cooked with rice, bacon, broth, spices, onions, tomato, saffron, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Saffron and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Capon with Rice, Provence Fashion

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the capon

  1. Truss the capon as for boiling.

  2. Cover the capon with thin layers of fat bacon.

  3. Place the capon in a stewpan with enough broth to cover.

  4. Add peppercorns and cloves.

  5. Cover the stewpan.

Cook the capon and sauce

  1. Boil for 1 hour and 15 minutes on moderate heat.

  2. Fry the chopped onions in a stewpan for the last 20 minutes.

  3. Peel, seed, and chop the tomato.

  4. Mix the tomato with the onions.

  5. Moisten the mixture with the capon's stock.

  6. Add saffron.

  7. Add parsley.

  8. Cover the stewpan.

Cook the rice

  1. Boil the rice for 40 minutes until well cooked but firm.

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. Saffron + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Saffron + ricetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Tomato + saffrontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together369 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Clove + saffrontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together455 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Capon
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during long gentle simmering.
Thin layers of fat bacon
Bastes the bird with fat, adding moisture and savory flavor as it cooks.
Broth from pot-au-feu
Gently cooks the capon and becomes the base of the sauce, adding moisture and flavor.
Chopped onions
Fried until softened, they add sweetness and body to the tomato sauce.
Tomato
Adds acidity and moisture, giving the sauce fresh body and brightness.
Rice
Forms the starchy side, absorbing flavor while cooking to a firm, tender texture.

The step that matters

Boil the rice for 40 minutes until well cooked but firm.. Rice cooked too long turns soft and mushy because its starch keeps swelling and breaking down, so timing must be watched closely to keep grains intact.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, tomato, saffron, parsley, rice):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, tomato, saffron, parsley, rice. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes