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Truffles with Champagne, a LA Serviette

A savory dish of truffles simmered in veal gravy and champagne, served on bacon.

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 with Champagne, a LA Serviette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Select the finest truffles, discarding any with a musty smell.

  2. Wash and brush the truffles well with cold water, changing the water several times.

Braise

  1. Line a stewpan with slices of bacon and add the truffles.

  2. Add parsley, green onions, thyme, bay leaves, cloves, and sweet basil.

  3. Pour in enough rich veal gravy to cover the truffles and add champagne.

  4. Boil gently for one hour, then let cool in the gravy.

Serve

  1. Reheat the truffles in the gravy when ready to serve.

  2. Lift them out, drain on a clean cloth, and serve in a white 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Clove + basiltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Truffles
Provide the dish's main flavour and aroma, which concentrate during the gentle braise.
Rich veal gravy
Surrounds the truffles with moisture and savoury depth as they cook and cool.
Champagne
Adds acidity and a light, fruity aroma to the braising liquid.
Slices of bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that flavours the truffles from below during cooking.

The step that matters

Boil gently for one hour. A gentle simmer lets the truffle flavour move into the liquid without breaking the delicate flesh. A hard boil would toughen and disintegrate the truffles and make the gravy cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, parsley, thyme, clove, basil, veal, champagne):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, parsley, thyme, clove, basil, veal, champagne. 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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