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Puree of Chestnuts

A smooth chestnut puree made with butter, wine, broth, and meat glaze, garnished with chipolata sausages.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Puree of Chestnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chestnuts

  1. Peel the chestnuts and pour lightly salted boiling water over them to remove the inner skin.

Cook the chestnuts

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and toss the chestnuts over the heat for a few minutes.

  2. Moisten the chestnuts with white wine and broth, then cover and cook until tender.

Make the puree and serve

  1. Remove the chestnuts and pound them through a colander, then rub through a fine sieve.

  2. Keep the puree warm in a saucepan, adding butter and meat glaze before serving.

  3. If serving as a vegetable, garnish the puree with sausages chipolata.

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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Chestnut + white winetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  4. Chestnut + meattop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chestnut + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together965 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

Chestnuts
Form the main body of the puree, giving it starch, bulk and a soft, floury texture when cooked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the puree a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic flavour as it cooks down with the chestnuts.
Broth
Supplies moisture and savoury flavour while the chestnuts cook until tender.
Meat glaze
Adds concentrated savoury depth and a richer, browned meaty flavour to the puree.

The step that matters

Rubbing the chestnuts through a fine sieve. Pounding and sieving breaks down the cooked starch and fibres. If the chestnuts are undercooked or the puree is left coarse, it stays grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the chestnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, white wine, meat):

  1. Peasfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Chestnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, white wine, meat. 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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