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Stewed Frogs

A stew of frogs cooked with butter, flour, stock, egg yolk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Frogs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the frogs as for frying.

Make the sauce

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter until browned.

  2. Add the flour and mix until smooth.

  3. Pour in the stock and bring to a boil.

  4. Add the frogs and simmer for 10 minutes.

  5. Season with salt and pepper, then remove from heat.

  6. Stir in the beaten egg yolk and serve immediately.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Frogs
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender as they simmer in the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and, once browned, a nutty aroma to the base.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce that clings to the frogs.
Stock
Provides the liquid that cooks the frogs and forms the sauce.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce just before serving.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolk off the heat. Egg yolk thickens by gentle heat. If the sauce is too hot when the yolk goes in, it can scramble into small curds instead of giving a smooth, creamy sauce.

“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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