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Fat-liver ‘timbales’

Fat-liver Timbales are small meatballs made from poultry force‑meat and liver puree, fried and filled with liver and truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and truffle work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 527 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Fat-liver ‘timbales’

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the timbales

  1. Prepare the poultry force-meat in a bowl.

  2. Add the puree of cooked poultry livers and mix well.

  3. Fill fourteen large dariole moulds with the mixture.

  4. Place the moulds in a sauté pan and poach in a bain-marie until firm.

  5. Turn out the timbales and let them cool.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each timbale in beaten eggs and coat with breadcrumbs.

  2. Use a small paste-cutter to create an opening on top of each timbale.

  3. Just before serving, fry the timbales in hot fat until golden brown.

Fill and serve

  1. Drain the timbales and carefully scoop out some filling, leaving a little thickness on the sides and bottom.

  2. Fill each timbale with a salpicon of fat-liver mixed with truffles and thickened brown sauce.

  3. Arrange the timbales in a pyramid on a folded napkin.

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. Meat + truffletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Liver + truffletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  3. Egg + truffletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,604 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Meat + livertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together332 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,167 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Poultry force-meat
Forms the body of each timbale and holds its shape when poached.
Puree of cooked poultry livers
Adds rich liver flavour and a smooth, moist texture to the force-meat.
Beaten eggs
Bind the breadcrumbs to the timbale surface and help the coating set.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden-brown shell when fried.
Fat liver
Adds richness and fat that gives the filling a smooth, savoury body.
Truffles
Add a strong, earthy aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Fry in hot fat just before serving. Hot fat sets the egg and breadcrumb coating quickly, giving a crisp, golden shell. Cooler fat lets the coating soak up oil and turn greasy, while overly hot fat browns the crumbs before the timbale is warmed through.

“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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