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Sauce

Truffle Sauce

A sauce made with truffles, brown sauce, tomato sauce, anchovy essence, butter, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Truffle Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the truffles finely and place them in a small saucepan.

  2. Cover the truffles with sherry, then add the brown sauce and tomato sauce.

  3. Boil for a few minutes.

  4. Finish by stirring in the anchovy essence and fresh butter.

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Truffles
Provide the earthy, aromatic flavour that defines the sauce.
Brown sauce
Forms the savoury base and body of the sauce.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity and a rounded, tangy sweetness to balance the sauce.
Fresh butter
Stirred in at the end to add richness and a glossy, smooth finish.

The step that matters

Boil for a few minutes. Boiling briefly lets the sherry and sauces reduce and concentrate their flavour, while the truffle aroma is released into the liquid. Boiling too long can dull the truffle's delicate aroma, so timing matters.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, sauce, anchovy, butter, sherry):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, sauce, anchovy, butter, sherry. 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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