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Dessert

Baked Truffles, with Cream Sauce

Baked truffles simmered in wine, meat glaze, and cream sauce, then baked with Parmesan topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and parmesan cheese work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 697 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Baked Truffles, with Cream Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, reduce the white wine to one-quarter of its original quantity.

  2. Add the meat glaze and cream sauce, then stir in the sliced truffles.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and nutmeg.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a buttered baking dish and sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese on top.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until heated through.

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. White wine + parmesan cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

White wine
Reduced to concentrate its flavour and add acidity to the sauce.
Cream sauce
Provides moisture and a smooth, rich body that carries the truffles.
Meat glaze
Adds savoury depth and body to the sauce.
Sliced truffles
Supply the dominant earthy, aromatic flavour of the dish.
Parmesan cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Reducing the white wine. Reducing concentrates the wine's flavour and cooks off excess liquid, so the sauce tastes deep rather than thin or sharply acidic. Stopping at the stated quarter quantity keeps the sauce thick enough to hold together in the dish.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, meat, cream, sauce, truffle, parmesan cheese, butter):

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, meat, cream, sauce, truffle, parmesan cheese, butter. 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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