Name: Truffle Sauce
Ingredients: 1 cup brown sauce; 2 tablespoons Sherry wine

Why it works: Sauce and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,097 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Truffle Sauce

Ingredients

1 cup brown sauce
2 tablespoons Sherry wine

Directions

Combine the brown sauce and Sherry wine in a saucepan.
Heat gently until warmed through.

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 + sherrytop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,097 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + winetop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,936 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sherry + winetop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together0 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).