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Four Entries for Tfie Dinner

Quenelles pressed onto truffle rounds, then dipped in boiling water so the quenelles release from their paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,604 recipes. Both carry 2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Four Entries for Tfie Dinner

20 quenelles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shape 20 quenelles and place them on buttered paper.

  2. Slice whole truffles into 20 thin slices.

  3. Cut 22 rounds from the sliced truffles using a tin cutter.

  4. Beat the egg white for 1 minute.

Assemble and poach

  1. Moisten the pointed end of each quenelle with egg white and press onto a truffle round.

  2. Prepare a 6-quart pot half-full of boiling water.

  3. Dip the strips of paper with quenelles into the boiling water, holding by one end to withdraw the paper.

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. Egg + truffletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,604 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg white
Acts as a binding glue, holding each quenelle to its truffle round and setting when heated.
Whole truffles
Provide the aroma and earthy flavour, and the thin rounds give the dish its visible garnish.

The step that matters

Dipping the paper into boiling water. Heat sets the egg white and the quenelle's shape, so the paper must be lowered in and held by one end so the quenelles release cleanly without breaking apart.

“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.