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Puree of Chestnuts

A smooth chestnut puree made with butter, wine, broth, and meat glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Puree of Chestnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chestnuts

  1. Peel the chestnuts and soak them in lightly salted boiling water to remove the inner skin.

Cook

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter.

  2. Toss the chestnuts over the heat for a few minutes.

  3. Moisten the chestnuts with white wine and broth.

  4. Cover and cook until tender.

  5. Remove the chestnuts.

Make the puree and serve

  1. Pound them through a colander.

  2. Rub through a fine sieve.

  3. Keep the puree warm in a saucepan.

  4. Add butter and meat glaze before serving.

  5. If serving as a vegetable, garnish the puree with chipolata sausages.

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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Chestnut + white winetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  4. Chestnut + meattop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chestnut + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together965 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

Chestnuts
Form the bulk of the puree, providing starch that thickens and gives body when pounded smooth.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished puree.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma while moistening the chestnuts during cooking.
Broth
Supplies liquid so the chestnuts cook through and soften evenly.
Meat glaze
Adds savory depth and concentrated flavor to the finished puree.

The step that matters

Rub through a fine sieve. Chestnuts must be cooked until fully tender before pounding and sieving; underdone chestnuts stay grainy and clog the sieve, leaving the puree lumpy instead of smooth.

Swap the chestnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, white wine, meat):

  1. Peasfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Chestnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, white wine, meat. 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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