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Fowl a LA Parmesan in Aspic

A chilled aspic dish of fowl and ham with Parmesan and béchamel, garnished with chervil, tongue, capers, and hard‑boiled egg slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 135 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fowl a LA Parmesan in Aspic

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Pound and sieve the fowl and ham.

  2. Stir the grated Parmesan into the hot béchamel sauce until smooth.

  3. Let the mixture cool.

  4. Combine the cooled mixture with the meat and add the aspic mayonnaise.

Set in the mold

  1. Prepare a plain mold lined with pink aspic.

  2. Garnish the bottom and sides of the mold with chervil, tongue, ham, capers, and egg slices.

  3. Set the garnish with more jelly.

  4. Fill the mold with the cheese mixture.

  5. Pour jelly over the top.

  6. Chill in an ice cave for at least an hour.

  7. Turn out and garnish as desired.

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. Chervil + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  4. Ham + parmesan cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together144 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  5. Parmesan cheese + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Provides the main meaty body and texture of the filling after it is pounded and sieved.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and richness to the béchamel base.
Béchamel sauce
Forms a smooth, creamy base that binds the meat into a cohesive filling.
Aspic mayonnaise
Adds moisture and richness to the filling and helps it set softly.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before combining it with the meat. Adding the hot cheese béchamel to the meat and aspic mayonnaise can overheat the mayonnaise, causing it to separate or break, and can melt the aspic so the filling will not set firmly.

“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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