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A Chartreuse of Roots and Sausages

A baked dish of carrots, sausages, bacon, forced meat, and pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,905 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

A Chartreuse of Roots and Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the sausages on a very low heat.

  2. Prick the sausages with a fork to prevent bursting.

  3. Peel and slice the carrots into ½ inch thick pieces.

  4. Line a savoy cake mold with sheets of fat bacon.

Assemble the chartreuse

  1. Arrange carrots around the edge of the mold.

  2. Layer sausages inside the carrots.

  3. Continue layering until the bottom is covered, alternating carrots and sausages.

  4. Brush the inside with beaten egg to bind the layers together.

  5. Add a thin layer of forced‑meat at the bottom and around the sides of the mold.

  6. Fill the mold with ragout.

  7. Cover the ragout with pastry dough, sealing it well with egg wash.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the mold in a stewpan of hot water, ensuring the water comes halfway up the mold.

  2. Bake in the oven at 300°F (150°C) for 1.5 hours.

  3. Turn the chartreuse out onto a serving dish.

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. Carrot + meattop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Carrot + eggtop 35% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Form the decorative outer layer and add sweetness and moisture as they cook.
Sausages
Provide the savory, fatty filling that gives the chartreuse its body and flavor.
Fat bacon
Lines the mold, adding fat that bastes the filling and keeps it moist.
Forced-meat
Forms a binding layer that holds the mold together and cushions the filling.
Pastry dough
Encloses the ragout, sealing in moisture and forming a browned crust.
Egg
Binds the layers together and, as an egg wash, helps the pastry seal and brown.

The step that matters

Place the mold in a stewpan of hot water. A water bath surrounds the mold with gentle, even heat, so the custard-like forcemeat and sausages set without curdling or drying at the edges. Water that comes only partway up the mold keeps the bottom and sides from overheating.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, egg. 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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