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Truffles, Italian Style

A sauce of shallots, Madeira, Espagnole, garlic, butter, anchovy paste, served with sliced truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Truffles, Italian Style

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the chopped shallots and sweet oil in a saucepan.

  2. Warm gently without browning.

  3. Add the Madeira wine and reduce to one-quarter of the original quantity.

  4. Stir in the Espagnole sauce and chopped garlic.

  5. Boil for five minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the sliced truffles and toss until warmed through.

  2. Incorporate the butter and anchovy paste and toss until the butter melts.

  3. Serve.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Shallots
Soften and build a savoury, aromatic base for the sauce.
Madeira wine
Adds acidity and sweet, fortified depth as it reduces.
Espagnole sauce
Provides the body and thickness that holds the sauce together.
Truffles
Supply the earthy, aromatic flavour that defines the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and a smooth, glossy finish to the sauce.
Anchovy paste
Adds a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the flavour.

The step that matters

Reduce the Madeira to one-quarter. Reducing concentrates the wine's sugars and acidity and evaporates alcohol, so the flavour intensifies; stopping early leaves the sauce thin and sharp, while over-reducing can make it overly strong or syrupy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, madeira wine, sauce, garlic, truffle, butter, anchovy):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, madeira wine, sauce, garlic, truffle, butter, anchovy. 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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