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Truffle Gravy

A savory gravy made with fat, flour, stock, salt, pepper, Madeira wine, and chopped truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Madeira wine and truffle work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 195 recipes. The science ↓

Truffle Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pan, heat 4 tablespoons of fat.

  2. Add 5 tablespoons of flour and stir constantly.

  3. Gradually pour in 2 cups of stock while stirring.

  4. Add ½ teaspoon of salt, a few grains of pepper, 1 tablespoon of Madeira wine, and 2 chopped truffles.

  5. Stir well and cook until thickened.

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. Madeira wine + truffletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together195 recipes
  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + madeira winetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together423 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pepper + truffletop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,106 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Pepper + madeira winetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the fat and stock into a smooth gravy as it cooks.
Fat
Carries flavour and forms the roux base with the flour.
Stock
Provides the liquid that the roux thickens into gravy.
Truffles
Supply the earthy, aromatic flavour that defines the gravy.

The step that matters

Adding the stock gradually while stirring. Pouring the stock in slowly while stirring lets the starch in the flour disperse evenly. Dumping it in at once can form lumps that are hard to smooth out.

“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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