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Truffles

Baked truffles seasoned with pepper, salt, garlic, mace, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Truffles

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash the truffles in several waters and brush off the dirt.

  2. Wrap each truffle in buttered white writing paper.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for at least 1 hour.

Serve whole

  1. Remove the papers, wipe the truffles, and serve them in a hot napkin.

Alternative: slice and bake

  1. Alternatively, slice the truffles.

  2. Season the sliced truffles with pepper, salt, garlic, and pounded mace.

  3. Bake the seasoned truffles in salad oil for about 1 hour.

  4. Squeeze lemon over the baked truffles before serving.

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

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

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  5. Garlic + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,893 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
The main ingredient, cooked gently in its wrapping or in oil to become tender and aromatic.
Salad oil
Carries heat evenly around the sliced truffles and keeps them moist while they bake.
Garlic
Adds a pungent aroma that mellows and sweetens as it bakes.
Lemon
Its acidity brightens the rich, earthy flavour of the baked truffles.

The step that matters

Baking wrapped truffles long enough. Truffles are dense and must bake for the full time at a hot oven temperature so the heat fully penetrates and softens them before serving.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, pepper, clove, 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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