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Puree of Chestnuts

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 pour lightly salted boiling water over them to remove the inner skin.

  2. In a saucepan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter and toss the chestnuts over the heat for a few minutes.

Cook and puree

  1. Moisten the chestnuts with ⅓ cup of white wine and enough broth to cover them.

  2. Cover the saucepan and cook until the chestnuts are tender.

  3. Remove the chestnuts and pound them through a colander, then rub through a fine sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Keep the puree warm in a saucepan and add 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of meat glaze before serving.

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

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
Provide the starchy base that becomes the smooth, thick puree when cooked and sieved.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the puree a silky mouthfeel and rounded flavour.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma as it cooks down with the chestnuts.
Meat glaze
Adds savoury depth and concentrated meaty flavour to the finished puree.

The step that matters

Rubbing the chestnuts through a fine sieve. Pushing cooked chestnuts through a sieve breaks down the starch-rich pieces into a smooth texture. Skipping this or using a coarse sieve leaves the puree grainy and lumpy.

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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