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Croustade of Larks

A croustade is a fried bread case holding boned larks stuffed with forcemeat and truffle, served with Périgueux sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Truffle and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Croustade of Larks

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the croustade

  1. Cut the stale loaf into a square shape resembling a croustade.

  2. Insert a fork in the center and fry it in hot lard until golden brown.

  3. Mix egg white and flour into a paste and stick the croustade to the center of a dish.

Cook the larks

  1. Stuff each lark with forcemeat and a small truffle, shape them into round balls, and cut off the legs.

  2. Place the larks in a sauté pan with clarified butter, season with pepper and salt, and cover with buttered paper.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 minutes until cooked.

Serve

  1. Before serving, heat the croustade in the oven for 5 minutes.

  2. Drain the larks and arrange them neatly in the croustade.

  3. Garnish with button mushrooms and crawfish, then pour Perigueux sauce over and around it.

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. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread loaf
Forms a crisp, sturdy case that holds the larks while it fries to golden brown.
Larks
Provide the main meat, which cooks gently in butter under buttered paper.
Forcemeat
Fills the birds, keeping the meat moist and adding body to the stuffing.
Truffles
Add a strong earthy aroma to the stuffing.
Egg white
Binds the flour into a paste that holds the croustade to the dish.

The step that matters

Baking the larks. Larks are small and lean, so they can dry out quickly. Covering them with buttered paper traps moisture and gentle heat keeps the meat tender, while overcooking toughens the protein.

“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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