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Pate-chaud of Leverets, with Truffles, a LA Perigueux

A warm pâté of leverets sautéed with truffles, finished with Perigueux sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Pate-chaud of Leverets, with Truffles, a LA Perigueux

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the clarified butter in a sauté pan over a brisk fire.

  2. Season the leveret joints with pepper and salt, then fry them until browned.

  3. Add the truffles and a small piece of glaze to the pan.

  4. Cover the pan with a lid containing live embers and reduce the heat to a slow fire.

  5. Simmer for 20 minutes.

  6. Add the Perigueux sauce and boil together for 3 minutes.

  7. 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.

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Truffle + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,490 recipes
  5. Pepper + truffletop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,106 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 meat that becomes tender and browned during frying and slow simmering.
Truffles
Add a concentrated earthy aroma that infuses the butter and sauce during simmering.
Clarified butter
Conducts high heat for browning the meat and carries flavour without milk solids burning.
Glaze
Adds concentrated savoury body and gloss to the sauce as it simmers.

The step that matters

Frying the leveret joints until browned. Browning over a brisk fire creates Maillard flavours. Crowding the pan or too little heat steams the meat, leaving it grey and less flavourful.

“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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