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Epigramme De Foie Gras En Aspic

A molded aspic dish layered with foie gras pâté, ham or tongue, pheasant, and hard boiled egg, served with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and beetroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 678 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Epigramme De Foie Gras En Aspic

Ingredients

Directions

Set the aspic ring

  1. Cut little rounds from the whites and yolks of the hard boiled eggs.

  2. Remove the truffle from the pâté and cut rounds from it.

  3. Decorate the mold with the egg rounds and ham, then pour a little jelly in the bottom and let it set.

  4. Place rounds of pâté on the jelly and set with more jelly.

  5. Add rounds of pheasant and set again, repeating until the mold is full.

Unmold and serve

  1. When cold, turn onto an entree dish.

  2. In a bowl, combine the raw yolks and add the oil gradually while stirring continuously.

  3. Add the tarragon vinegar, malt vinegar, cream, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  4. Arrange the lettuce in a border and pour the mayonnaise around.

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. Lettuce + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Lettuce + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beetroot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pâté de foie gras
Gives a rich, savoury flavour and a soft, spreadable texture to the centre layer.
Aspic jelly
Sets into a clear gel that holds the layers together and gives the ring its shape.
Raw egg yolks
Act as the emulsifier that holds the oil and vinegar together in the dressing.
Salad oil
Forms the body of the emulsified dressing, giving it richness and smoothness.
Cream
Adds richness and softens the sharpness of the vinegar in the dressing.
Hard boiled eggs
Provide firm white and yolk rounds that decorate the mold and add contrast in colour.

The step that matters

Adding the oil to the yolks. Oil must be added slowly while stirring constantly so the yolk lecithin can emulsify it. Adding it too fast makes the dressing split and turn oily instead of thick.

Swap the beetroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, ham, pheasant, lettuce, tarragon, vinegar, malt):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Beetrootthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, ham, pheasant, lettuce, tarragon, vinegar, malt. 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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