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Truffles, in Madeira

Truffles cooked in Madeira wine with cloves, cayenne, mignonette pepper, salt, glaze, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Truffles, in Madeira

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Wash and brush the truffles well.

  2. Place truffles in a saucepan and cover with Madeira.

  3. Add cloves, cayenne, mignonette pepper, and salt.

  4. Cook until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Add glaze and keep truffles hot.

  2. Boil the wine quickly for a few minutes.

  3. Add butter and pour over the truffles.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Truffle + clovetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

  5. Clove + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,045 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Truffles
Form the main body of the dish and absorb the flavour of the wine and seasonings as they cook.
Madeira
Adds a sweet, nutty, slightly acidic wine flavour as it cooks down around the truffles.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish to the reduced wine poured over the truffles.
Glaze
Adds concentrated meat-based savoury depth and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the wine quickly for a few minutes. Rapid boiling reduces the Madeira and concentrates its flavour and sugars, while evaporating some alcohol. Boiling too long can make the sauce overly thick or sharp, so timing matters for a balanced, glossy result.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, pepper, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, pepper, 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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