Name: Pate-chaud of Leverets, with Truffles, a LA Perigueux
Ingredients: 2 leverets, cut into small joints; 3 ounces clarified butter; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; 4 ounces truffles, cut into thick scallops; 1 small piece of glaze; Périgueux sauce (to taste)

Why it works: Scallop and sauce work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 130 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Pate-chaud of Leverets, with Truffles, a LA Perigueux

Ingredients

2 leverets, cut into small joints
3 ounces clarified butter
pepper to taste
coarse sea salt to taste
4 ounces truffles, cut into thick scallops
1 small piece of glaze
Périgueux sauce (to taste)

Directions

In a sauté pan, heat the clarified butter over a brisk fire.
Season the leveret joints with pepper and salt, then fry until browned.
Add the truffles and glaze, cover with a lid containing hot embers, and simmer on low for 20 minutes.
Stir in the Périgueux sauce and allow to boil together for 3 minutes.
Garnish the pâté-chaud and serve.

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.

Scallop + saucetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together130 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,209 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Truffle + scalloptop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together40 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Butter + scalloptop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together160 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Leverets: Provide the meat that forms the body of the pâté.
Clarified butter: Fries the leveret joints and carries heat for even browning.
Truffles: Add a strong earthy aroma and flavour to the dish.
Périgueux sauce: Adds a rich, savoury sauce that is reduced with the meat at the end.

The step that matters

Frying the leveret until browned. Browning the joints over a brisk fire builds flavour through the Maillard reaction. If the pan is crowded or not hot enough, the meat steams and turns grey instead of browning.

“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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Pate-chaud of Leverets, with Truffles, a LA Perigueux