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Croustade of Larks

A croustade of stale loaf filled with larks stuffed with forcemeat and truffle, baked and served with Perigueux 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 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 of the loaf.

  3. Fry the loaf in hot lard until golden brown.

  4. Stick the croustade on a dish using a paste made from egg white and flour.

Cook the larks

  1. Stuff each lark with forcemeat and a small truffle.

  2. Shape the stuffed larks into round balls.

  3. Place the larks in a sauté pan with clarified butter.

  4. Season the larks with pepper and salt.

  5. Cover the pan with buttered paper.

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

  7. Reheat the croustade in the oven for 5 minutes before serving.

  8. Drain the larks.

Serve

  1. Arrange the larks neatly in the croustade.

  2. Garnish with button mushrooms and crawfish.

  3. Pour Perigueux sauce over and around the croustade.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Larks
Provide the tender meat that is stuffed, shaped and baked as the main filling.
Forcemeat
Adds a moist, seasoned stuffing that keeps the boned larks juicy as they cook.
Truffles
Add an earthy, aromatic flavor inside each stuffed lark.
Egg white
Combined with flour to form a paste that glues the croustade to the dish.
Clarified butter
Adds fat and rich flavor while the larks cook gently in the pan.

The step that matters

Bake the larks covered in buttered paper. Covering the pan traps moisture so the small birds cook through gently without drying out, while the buttered paper keeps the surface from scorching in the hot oven.

“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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