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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: Truffle and sherry work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 297 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Truffle + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,048 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,907 recipes

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

  5. Garlic + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned 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.

Flavor stand-ins for the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  2. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  3. Rosemarybetter flavor fit
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, garlic, thyme, pepper, sauce, sherry, anchovy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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