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Truffles a LA Seryibtte

A truffle dish simmered with bacon, veal gravy, champagne, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 Seryibtte

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the truffles

  1. Select the finest truffles, ensuring they have no 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, parsley, green onions, thyme, bay leaves, doves, and sweet basil.

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

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

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, heat them in the gravy, lift them out, and drain on a clean cloth.

  2. Serve neatly in a fine white napkin to contrast with the dark truffles.

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. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Truffles
Provide the main earthy, aromatic flavour that defines the dish.
Rich veal gravy
Surrounds the truffles during cooking, adding savoury depth and moisture.
Champagne
Adds acidity and a light aromatic character to the cooking liquid.
Slices of bacon
Lines the pan, adding smoky, savoury fat flavour to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Boil gently for one hour. A vigorous boil can toughen and break up the truffles and cloud the gravy. A gentle simmer keeps them tender while the flavours from the bacon, herbs and wine infuse slowly.

Swap the onion

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

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

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