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In Matelotte Sauce

Brains, truffles, and crayfish served in a sauce of white wine, cayenne, lemon, and buttered onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

In Matelotte Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Prepare the brains as directed in recipe No. 786 and drain them on a napkin.

  2. Cut the drained brains into scoops and arrange them in a circular order in a croustade.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine white wine, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, and the small button onions.

  2. Simmer the sauce until the onions are tender, then add the truffles, quenelles, mushrooms, and crayfish tails.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the matelotte sauce over the arranged brains in the croustade.

  2. Crown the top with the large crayfish and place the fried crouton in the center with a large truffle on top.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 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

Brains
Form the main body of the dish, with a soft, delicate texture that the sauce coats.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce, balancing its richness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.
Truffles
Contribute a deep, earthy aroma that flavours the sauce.
Button onions
Become tender and sweet when simmered in butter, adding body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering the sauce until the onions are tender. Onions must cook fully to become tender and sweet; underdone onions stay sharp and firm, while overcooking can break them down and dull the sauce's flavour and texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, pepper, lemon, butter, truffle, mushroom, crayfish):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, pepper, lemon, butter, truffle, mushroom, crayfish. 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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