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Fried Frog's Legs

Fried Frog's Legs are pan‑fried frog hind legs coated in flour and cornmeal, served with lemon and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fried Frog's Legs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the skin and feet from the hind legs of the frogs.

  2. Parboil the legs in salted water with a little lemon juice or vinegar for five minutes.

  3. Drain and wipe the legs dry.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the legs in beaten egg, then coat with a mixture of flour and cornmeal.

  2. Heat the butter (or lard and butter) in a frying pan.

  3. Fry the legs slowly until they are nicely browned.

Serve

  1. Serve on a folded napkin, garnished with lemon and parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

Hind legs of frogs
The main protein, which is cooked until tender and browned.
Egg
Binds the flour and cornmeal coating so it adheres to the legs during frying.
Flour
Forms the base of the coating and helps it crisp and brown in the fat.
Cornmeal
Adds a crunchy texture to the coating as it fries.
Butter
Provides the frying fat, adding richness and promoting browning.

The step that matters

Fry the legs slowly until nicely browned. Frying gently lets the heat reach the centre of the coated legs before the coating darkens too much. Drying the legs well before coating also matters, because surface moisture steams the coating and keeps it from crisping.

“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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