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Truffles, a LA Piemontaise

Fresh truffles sautéed in olive oil with parsley, thyme, garlic, sauce, glaze and lemon juice, then spooned over buttered French rolls and crisped in the oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Truffles, a LA Piemontaise

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the truffles

  1. Cut the truffles into scoops.

  2. Heat olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat.

  3. Add truffles, parsley, thyme, garlic, mignonette pepper, and salt; fry for 5 minutes.

  4. Remove the garlic, then add the sauce, glaze, and lemon juice.

  5. Toss everything together over the heat.

Bake and serve

  1. Spread butter on the hollow crusts of two French rolls, then pour the truffle mixture over them.

  2. Place the rolls in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes to crisp.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh truffles
Provide the main aroma and flavour of the dish.
Olive oil
Carries the garlic and herb flavours and helps fry the truffles evenly.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma while frying, then is removed so it does not overpower.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich truffle and sauce mixture.

The step that matters

Removing the garlic before adding the sauce. Garlic left in the pan keeps browning and turning bitter as the sauce and glaze heat, which can overpower the delicate truffle aroma. Removing it at the right moment keeps the flavour balanced.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, olive, parsley, thyme, garlic, pepper, sauce):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Basilfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, olive, parsley, thyme, garlic, pepper, sauce. 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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