Name: Little Pies, with Truffles
Ingredients: 1 pound truffles; ½ pound fillets of veal; ¼ pound sausage meat; ¼ pound beef marrow; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste; 1 or more eggs; Equal small spoonfuls of brandy to the number of eggs; Pâte feuilletée for crust

Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Little Pies, with Truffles

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

Chop or pound the truffles, veal, sausage meat, and beef marrow together.
Add salt, pepper, one or more eggs, and an equal number of small spoonfuls of brandy.

Assemble and bake

Place the mixture on a round under crust of pâte feuilletée, about the size and thickness of a silver dollar.
Cover with another round of pâte feuilletée, sealing the edges.
Brush the top with egg yolk.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.
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.

Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Truffle + vealtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together815 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,784 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,533 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Truffle + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together527 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Truffles: Provide the main aroma and flavour that defines the filling.
Eggs: Bind the chopped meats and truffles together so the filling holds its shape.
Fillets of veal: Add a tender meaty body to the filling.
Sausage meat: Adds fat and savoury richness to the filling.
Beef marrow: Adds richness and fat that keeps the filling moist.

The step that matters

Sealing the edges. If the top and bottom rounds of pastry are not sealed well, the filling can leak and dry out during baking. Puff pastry also depends on cold, layered dough, so it should be handled gently to rise properly.

“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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Little Pies, with Truffles