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Beignets De Poulet a LA Tartare

Deep-fried battered chicken pieces served with tartare sauce and fried parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beignets De Poulet a LA Tartare

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Fry the chicken

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan until hot enough for frying.

  2. Dip chicken pieces into the thick fritter batter.

  3. Carefully drop the battered chicken into the boiling lard.

  4. Fry until pale golden-yellow, then remove and drain on paper.

  5. Keep warm in a 300°F (150°C) oven until ready to serve.

Serve

  1. Serve in a pyramid on a cut paper or folded napkin.

  2. Garnish with fried parsley and serve with tartare sauce.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold chicken
Provides the main protein; cutting it into small pieces lets it cook through quickly in the batter.
Fritter batter
Forms a crisp, golden coating that seals in moisture while the chicken fries.
Lard
Frying fat that conducts heat evenly and gives the coating its crisp, browned surface.

The step that matters

Dropping the battered chicken into the lard. Lard must be hot enough before the battered chicken goes in. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of crisp and golden.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, sauce):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, sauce. 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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