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Italian Style of Dressing Truffles

Thinly sliced truffles are dressed with oil, spices, and lemon juice, then served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Italian Style of Dressing Truffles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and brush the truffles, then cut them into thin slices.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the truffle slices in a baking dish with a seasoning of salad oil, pepper, coarse sea salt, parsley, garlic, and mace.

  2. Bake for nearly 1 hour.

  3. Just before serving, add the lemon juice and serve very hot.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 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

Truffles
Provide the main earthy aroma and flavour that defines the dressing.
Salad oil
Carries the fat-soluble aromas and gives the dressing a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, earthy flavours.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that mellows and sweetens during baking.

The step that matters

Baking the truffle slices. Baking gently releases and infuses the truffle aroma into the oil. Overheating can scorch the garlic and parsley and turn the oil bitter, so the dish should be watched closely.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, pepper, parsley, garlic, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Basilfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, pepper, parsley, garlic, lemon. 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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