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Truffles with Sauce

A stew of truffles cooked with milk, onion, and seasonings, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Truffles with Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and simmer

  1. Cut truffles into 1-inch squares.

  2. Combine truffles, milk, onion, salt, and pepper in a stewpan.

  3. Bring to a boil, then simmer gently for 2 hours.

Thicken and serve

  1. Mix flour with a little cold milk.

  2. Stir the flour mixture into the stew until boiling, then simmer for 5 more minutes.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + oniontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 main body and earthy aroma of the stew as they soften in the liquid.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that cooks down gently around the truffles and onion.
Flour
Thickens the stew as it boils, giving it a smoother, heavier texture.

The step that matters

Stir the flour mixture into the stew until boiling. Flour must be fully mixed in and brought to a boil so the starch swells and thickens the liquid. Adding it lumpy or undercooked leaves a pasty taste and gritty texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, milk, pepper, flour):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, milk, pepper, flour. 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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