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Truffles Stewed in Champagne

A stew of truffles cooked with bacon fat, seasonings, ham, and champagne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Truffles Stewed in Champagne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Thoroughly wash and clean the truffles.

  2. Line a stewpan with slices of bacon fat.

Stew

  1. Add the truffles to the stewpan and season with salt, bay leaf, seasoned faggot, green onions, garlic, and thyme.

  2. Pour in the reduction from a fricandeau or braise, add the ham, and half a bottle of champagne.

  3. Cover with a round of buttered paper and the lid, then let boil.

  4. Simmer on a back stove with heat above and below for one hour.

Serve

  1. Serve in 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.

  1. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Garlic + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,608 recipes

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

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Truffles
Are the main ingredient, giving the dish its earthy, aromatic flavour as they stew.
Champagne
Adds acidity and aromatic liquid that braises the truffles and lightly flavours the sauce.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the cooking liquid.
Bacon fat
Adds fat and savoury flavour that coats the truffles and the pan.

The step that matters

Simmer gently on a back stove. Truffles are delicate and gentle heat keeps them tender and aromatic. Vigorous boiling can toughen them and drive off volatile aroma compounds.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, onion, garlic, thyme, ham, champagne):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, onion, garlic, thyme, ham, champagne. 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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