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; a small piece of glaze; Perigueux 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
a small piece of glaze
Perigueux sauce (to taste)

Directions

Heat the clarified butter in a sauté pan over a brisk fire.
Season the leveret joints with pepper and salt, then fry until browned.
Add the truffles and a small piece of glaze, cover with a lid containing live embers, and simmer on low heat for 20 minutes.
Stir in the Perigueux sauce and allow to boil 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 main meat, which browns in the butter and becomes tender during the slow simmer.
Truffles: Contribute a strong earthy aroma that perfumes the butter and sauce during simmering.
Clarified butter: Conducts high heat for browning the meat and carries flavour through the dish.
Perigueux sauce: Adds a rich, savoury body and depth to the finished pâté.

The step that matters

Browning the leveret joints. Frying the seasoned joints until well browned builds the savoury, roasted flavours that the later simmer cannot create. Pale, steamed joints produce a flat, less flavourful dish.

“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