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Stuffing of Truffles for

A savory stuffing made with truffles, bacon, garlic, herbs, and a sauce of brown sauce, sherry, Bovril, and anchovy essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stuffing of Truffles for

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the truffles

  1. Wash and brush the truffles well, changing the water several times.

  2. Dry the truffles.

  3. Cut each truffle into quarters.

Make the stuffing

  1. Mince the bacon finely and pound it to a paste.

  2. Put the bacon paste in a stewpan with the truffles, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

  3. Let the mixture simmer over gentle heat for 10 minutes.

  4. Stuff the pig with the mixture.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Wash the truffles.

  2. Wipe the truffles.

  3. Pare the truffles.

  4. Chop the truffles very small.

  5. In a stewpan, combine the chopped truffles, thick brown sauce, garlic, and sherry.

  6. Let it boil for 10 minutes.

  7. Mix in the Bovril and essence of anchovy.

  8. Boil once more.

  9. Serve.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Garlic + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,608 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

English truffles
Provides the strong, earthy aroma that defines the stuffing and sauce.
Fat bacon
Its fat carries flavour and keeps the stuffing moist.
Thick brown sauce
Adds body and a thick, savoury coating to the chopped truffles.
Sherry
Adds acidity and a rounded, nutty depth as it reduces.
Garlic
Adds sharp aromatic flavour that mellows during simmering.
Bovril
Adds concentrated savoury, meaty depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer the stuffing over gentle heat. Gentle heat lets the bacon fat and truffle aroma blend slowly without scorching the paste. Vigorous boiling can toughen the bacon and drive off the delicate truffle aroma.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, clove, thyme, nutmeg, pepper, sauce, sherry):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, clove, thyme, nutmeg, pepper, sauce, sherry. 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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