Name: Truffles a LA Périgourdine
Ingredients: truffles; butter; sauce à l'italienne or Espagnole; white wine

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 ↓

Truffles a LA Périgourdine

Ingredients

truffles
butter
sauce à l'italienne or Espagnole
white wine

Directions

Make the sauce

Cut the truffles into small squares.
In a pan, heat some butter and add the truffles.
Stir in 2 or 3 large spoonfuls of sauce and a little white wine.
Once cooked, add another piece of butter and stir well.

Serve

Serve with partridges, chickens, fowls, or stuffed turkey.

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.

Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,209 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Truffle + white winetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together425 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Sauce + white winetop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together819 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce 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 sauce's main aroma and flavour.
Butter: Adds richness and a glossy finish to the sauce.
Sauce à l'italienne or espagnole: Forms the savoury base that the truffles and wine are stirred into.
White wine: Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and lifts the truffle flavour.

“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.