Name: Sauce Diplomate
Ingredients: 1 pint Normande Sauce; 2 ounces lobster butter; 3 tablespoons lobster meat; truffles, cut into small tubes

Why it works: Sauce and lobster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sauce Diplomate

Ingredients

1 pint Normande Sauce
2 ounces lobster butter
3 tablespoons lobster meat
truffles, cut into small tubes

Directions

In a bowl, combine 1 pint of Normande Sauce with 2 ounces of lobster butter.
Stir in 3 tablespoons of lobster meat.
Add truffles cut into small tubes and mix well.

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.

Sauce + lobstertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,209 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Meat + truffletop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together527 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together909 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Normande sauce: Forms the creamy base that carries the other flavors of the sauce.
Lobster butter: Adds richness and a concentrated lobster aroma to the sauce.
Lobster meat: Contributes pieces of seafood texture and a fresh lobster flavor.
Truffles: Add an earthy, aromatic note that stands out against the rich sauce.

“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.