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Truffles, Italian Style

A sauce of shallots, Madeira wine, Espagnole sauce, garlic, truffles, butter, and anchovy paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Truffles, Italian Style

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the sweet oil with the finely chopped shallots in a saucepan until warm, but do not let it brown.

  2. Add the Madeira wine and reduce the mixture to one-quarter of its original quantity.

  3. Stir in the Espagnole sauce and chopped garlic, then boil for five minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the sliced truffles and toss until they are thoroughly warmed.

  2. Incorporate the butter and anchovy paste, tossing until the butter melts, then serve.

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. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Shallots
Soften and add a mild, sweet aromatic base to the sauce.
Madeira wine
Reduces to concentrate flavour and adds a rich, slightly sweet acidity.
Espagnole sauce
Provides the thick brown sauce body that carries the other flavours.
Truffles
Supply the earthy, aromatic flavour that defines the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and a glossy, smooth texture when melted into the sauce.
Anchovy paste
Adds a savoury depth that rounds out the sauce without tasting fishy.

The step that matters

Reducing the Madeira wine. Reducing the wine to one-quarter concentrates its sugars and flavour and cooks off harsh alcohol. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and sharp, while over-reducing makes it too sticky and intense.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, madeira wine, sauce, garlic, truffle, butter, anchovy):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, madeira wine, sauce, garlic, truffle, butter, anchovy. 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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