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Timbale of Crayfish

A chilled dish of crayfish tails set in savoury jelly, garnished with jelly croutons and truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,209 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Timbale of Crayfish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tails

  1. Brush each crayfish tail with warmed crayfish butter.

  2. Warm the savoury jelly until it is liquid.

Set the mould

  1. Using a larding needle, dip each tail in the jelly and arrange them around a large timbale mould.

  2. Pack the mould in ice and let the jelly set.

  3. Pick out the meat from the claws and bodies, chop finely, and mix with warmed jelly to fill the timbale.

  4. Allow this to set as well.

Turn out and garnish

  1. Once firm, dip the mould in hot water, wipe it, and turn the timbale out onto a dish.

  2. Garnish with croutons of jelly and a decoration of truffles.

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. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Crayfish + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Crayfish + truffletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together129 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Crayfish tails
Provide the main meat and the visible decorative base of the timbale.
Savoury jelly
Sets firm to hold the tails in place and bind the filling so the timbale can be unmoulded.
Crayfish butter
Adds fat and rich crayfish flavour to the outside of the tails.

The step that matters

Turning out the timbale. Jelly must be fully set before unmoulding, or the shape collapses. A brief dip in hot water loosens the jelly from the mould wall so it releases cleanly without melting the surface.

“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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