Name: Calves Feet Au Gratin, and Spanish Sauce
Ingredients: 2 calves' feet; 1 egg; 1 cup bread crumbs; 2 tablespoons chopped shallots; 1 teaspoon thyme; 1 teaspoon parsley; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; lard for frying

Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Calves Feet Au Gratin, and Spanish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Coat

Dip the calves' feet in the egg.
Roll them in the bread crumbs mixed with shallots, thyme, parsley, pepper, and salt.
Repeat the egg and bread crumb coating, using plain bread crumbs for the second layer.

Fry and serve

Fry in lard until golden brown.
Arrange on a dish with the sauce in the center.

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.

Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,476 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,585 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' feet: Provide the main body of the dish, with gelatinous meat that becomes tender when cooked.
Egg: Acts as a binder that helps the bread crumbs adhere to the calves' feet.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.
Shallots: Add a mild aromatic onion flavor to the crumb coating.
Lard: Conducts heat for frying and browns the coating while adding richness.

The step that matters

Fry in lard until golden brown. The coating browns through Maillard reactions at high surface heat. Too little heat leaves it pale and greasy, while too much heat burns the crumbs before the coating is fully cooked.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, thyme, parsley, pepper):

Shallotthe original
Carrotfits about as well
Leekfits less well
Capsicumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, thyme, parsley, pepper. 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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

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Calves Feet Au Gratin, and Spanish Sauce