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Truffles Au Jus

A dish of truffles simmered in stock and wine, served with a forcemeat of veal, bacon, suet, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Truffles Au Jus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the truffles

  1. Wash and pick the truffles.

  2. Stew the truffles in good stock with ½ cup red wine.

  3. Drain the truffles and boil them in jus de veau or beef for 15 minutes.

Make the forcemeat

  1. For the forcemeat, scald a slice of veal and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Chop some bacon and suet finely, then remove sinews and skin.

  3. Pound all the meats together and add salt, pepper, nutmeg, shallots, parsley, and moistened bread crumbs.

  4. Bind the mixture with 3 egg yolks to form a forcemeat.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Nutmeg + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Truffles
Main flavour ingredient, gently stewed and then simmered so they absorb the surrounding liquids.
Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat, helping the mixture hold together when set by heat.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and lighten the forcemeat, giving it a softer texture.

The step that matters

Binding the forcemeat with egg yolks. Egg yolks coagulate when heated, so they bind the meat and crumbs into a cohesive mixture. Adding them to a mixture that is too wet or too cold can make the forcemeat loose or uneven.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, red wine, beef, pepper, shallot, parsley, bread):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, red wine, beef, pepper, shallot, parsley, bread. 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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