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Sweetbreads with Foie Gras in Aspic

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sweetbreads with Foie Gras in Aspic

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Line a square tin with deep turned-up edges with pale aspic.

  2. Cover the bottom with thin slices of foie gras.

  3. Layer the diced sweetbread mixture, then add more foie gras, and repeat until you have five layers.

  4. Pour more aspic on top and let it set and cool.

  5. Once set, divide into squares or fingers and serve with a garnish of chervil, tarragon, and fancy shapes of beetroot and cucumber.

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 + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Chervil + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together126 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tarragon + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Beetroot + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Chervil + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together144 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chervil, tarragon, beetroot):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chervil, tarragon, beetroot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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