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Fried Frogs

Fried frogs are frog legs cooked in water, salted, then fried with butter and pepper, served hot with lemon or cress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fried Frogs

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer

  1. Wash the frog legs and place them in a skillet with enough water to cover them.

  2. Add a little coarse sea salt and bring the water to a boil, being careful not to scorch the meat.

  3. Once the water has boiled away, add butter and pepper.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the legs until they are a delicate brown and quite tender.

  2. Serve hot, garnished with slices of lemon or cress.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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

Frog legs
The main protein, which turns tender and takes on a light brown crust when fried.
Butter
Fat that carries heat to the surface, promoting browning and adding a rich flavour.

The step that matters

Let the water boil away before frying. Water must evaporate before the butter and meat reach frying heat. Residual water makes the fat spatter and steam the surface, so the legs brown unevenly. Watch the pan closely, since scorching happens quickly once the water is gone.

“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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