Name: Italian Sauce, White
Ingredients: a few chopped truffles; shallots; some minced ham; ½ cup good light colored stock; béchamel sauce (to taste); a little cream; 2 drops garlic vinegar; juice of ½ lemon

Why it works: Shallot and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Italian Sauce, White

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

In a stew pan, combine chopped truffles, shallots, and minced ham with the stock.
Set the stew pan on low heat and simmer gently for about 15 minutes.
Add béchamel sauce according to the desired quantity of sauce.
Let it boil for a few minutes.
If the color fades, stir in a little cream and strain through a fine sieve.

Finish and serve

Just before serving, add 2 drops of garlic vinegar and squeeze in lemon juice.

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.

Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,523 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Garlic + lemontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,893 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,115 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Truffles: Provide the dominant aroma that defines the sauce.
Béchamel sauce: Forms the creamy base that gives the sauce body and coating texture.
Stock: Supplies the liquid that carries flavour from the aromatics into the sauce.
Cream: Restores a lighter colour and adds richness to the finished sauce.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Adding the béchamel and lemon at the right time. Boiling after adding béchamel can thicken and scorch the sauce if not stirred, and acid added too early can alter flavour. Adding the vinegar and lemon just before serving keeps the flavour bright and fresh.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, shallot, ham, sauce, cream, garlic, vinegar):

Avocadofits about as well
Lemonthe original
Limefits about as well
Red currantfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, shallot, ham, sauce, cream, garlic, vinegar. 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.