Why it works: Mushroom and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,900 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Layer the following ingredients in a small potting pan or jar: vermicelli, ham, hard-boiled egg yolks, veal, and highly-seasoned forcemeat, all finely pounded except for the vermicelli, which should be boiled.
Cover the pan and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 to 2 hours.
Once baked, turn out the dish and pour rich brown gravy over it.
Garnish with mushrooms, cut lemon, truffles, or morels.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Mushroom + truffletop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together1,900 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Veal + truffletop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together815 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Ham + truffletop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together516 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Veal + mushroomtop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,446 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Ham + mushroomtop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together1,486 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
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