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Truffles a LA Serviette

Truffles cooked in bacon, veal gravy, white wine, and herbs, served with cold butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Serviette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and brush the truffles to remove dirt and grit, then drain well.

  2. Line a stewpan with the bacon slices and place the truffles inside.

  3. Pour the veal gravy and white wine over the truffles.

  4. Add the parsley, thyme, bay leaf, cloves, and celery.

Cook and serve

  1. Cover tightly and simmer until done, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

  2. Let the truffles cool in the liquid.

  3. When ready to serve, reheat the truffles, drain, and place them in a folded napkin.

  4. Serve with cold butter.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 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. Thyme + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

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

  5. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Truffles
The main ingredient, whose earthy aroma is the centerpiece of the dish.
Thinly-sliced bacon
Wraps the truffles, adding fat and savoury flavour as it cooks.
Veal gravy
Provides a rich, savoury liquid that moistens and flavours the truffles as they simmer.
White wine
Adds acidity and brightness to the braising liquid, balancing the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer tightly covered until done. Truffles need gentle, sealed, moist heat to soften and absorb flavour. Lifting the lid or boiling hard lets liquid evaporate and can toughen the bacon and dry the truffles, so keep the pan covered and the liquid barely simmering.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, veal, white wine, parsley, thyme, celery):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, veal, white wine, parsley, thyme, celery. 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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