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Truffles

A dish of truffles prepared with bacon fat, butter, wine, gravy, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and champagne share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 96 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Truffles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the truffles

  1. Clean the truffles with a brush and cold water.

  2. Wrap truffles in thin slices of bacon fat and roll them in thick oiled paper.

  3. Bake in an oven or cook in wood ashes.

Make the sauce and cook

  1. Slice truffles.

  2. Toss them in butter.

  3. Serve with a thickened sauce of white wine and gravy.

  4. In a stewpan lined with bacon fat, add truffles, a bruised bay leaf, salt, pepper, and enough champagne to cover them.

  5. Serve in a napkin (en serviette).

  6. Mince truffles and toss them in olive oil.

  7. Add chopped parsley, pepper, a glass of white wine, and the same quantity of gravy.

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. White wine + champagnetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together96 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Truffle + champagnetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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, providing the dish's distinctive earthy aroma.
Bacon fat
Wraps the truffles and adds richness and savory flavor as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and a rich, smooth coating to the sliced truffles.
White wine
Adds acidity and body to the sauce, balancing the rich fats.
Gravy
Gives the sauce savory depth and body.
Champagne
Cooks the truffles gently and adds a light, acidic aroma.

The step that matters

Wrapping and baking or cooking in ashes. Truffles are delicate and aromatic, so they must be sealed tightly in fat and paper before heat is applied. This traps their volatile aroma and moisture, so the flavor is not lost to the heat.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, butter, white wine, pepper, champagne, olive):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, butter, white wine, pepper, champagne, olive. 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.

More truffles recipes

au Naturel 10Chocolate 7Baked 5Champagne 4Stuffed 4with Champagne 4 See all 2 →

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