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Salad

Salad of Black Truffles, Russ Fashion

A salad of raw black truffles simmered in madeira, seasoned with salt, oil, tarragon, chives, parsley, and mayonnaise sauce, finished with mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Salad of Black Truffles, Russ Fashion

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the truffles

  1. Peel the raw truffles and place them in a saucepan with madeira and salt.

  2. Boil for four minutes, then mince the truffles.

  3. In a bowl, mix the minced truffles with oil and let sit covered for ten minutes.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add chopped tarragon, chives, and parsley.

  2. Thicken the mixture with mayonnaise sauce and serve in a salad bowl.

  3. Top with a layer of mayonnaise sauce and finish with mustard.

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. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tarragon + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Tarragon + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together589 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chive + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw truffles
Provide the main earthy, aromatic flavour that defines the salad.
Madeira
Adds sweet, nutty depth as the truffles cook briefly in it.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds fat and creaminess, binding the minced truffles into a thick mixture.
Mustard
Adds sharp acidity and pungency that cuts through the rich mayonnaise.

The step that matters

Boil the truffles for four minutes in madeira. Brief boiling softens the truffles and lets madeira's sugars and flavour penetrate the mince. Boiling too long can dull the delicate aroma of the truffles, so timing matters.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, tarragon, chive, sauce, mustard):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, tarragon, chive, sauce, mustard. 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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