Name: A Truffle Pie Hot
Ingredients: Pie crust (enough for a dish 3 inches high); Truffle farce (as directed in page 173); 1 pound truffles, braised and peeled; Slices of ham fat; ⅓ cup Madeira wine

Why it works: Truffle and ham work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 516 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

A Truffle Pie Hot

Ingredients

Pie crust (enough for a dish 3 inches high)
Truffle farce (as directed in page 173)
1 pound truffles, braised and peeled
Slices of ham fat
⅓ cup Madeira wine

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.

Prepare

Prepare a pie crust according to the size of your dish, at least 3 inches high.
Make the truffle farce as directed in page 173.

Assemble

Fill the pie crust half full with the farce.
Layer in the braised and peeled truffles.
Cover the pie and decorate it.

Bake and serve

Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.
Once baked, cut the top off the pie and pour in the Madeira wine.
Replace the top and serve hot on a napkin.

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.

Truffle + hamtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together516 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together195 recipes
Ham + madeira winetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together154 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Truffles: Provide the main flavour and aroma of the pie.
Truffle farce: Forms the filling that holds the truffles and fills the crust.
Madeira wine: Adds sweetness and aroma to the baked pie.
Ham fat: Adds fat and richness to the filling.

“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.