Name: Brown Chestnut Sauce
Ingredients: rich brown gravy (or veal stock); chestnuts; Espagnole sauce or highly flavored gravy; seasonings to taste

Why it works: Chestnut and sauce work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 255 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Brown Chestnut Sauce

Ingredients

rich brown gravy (or veal stock)
chestnuts
Espagnole sauce or highly flavored gravy
seasonings to taste

Directions

Prepare rich brown gravy or use veal stock.
Pass the chestnuts through a sieve.
Mix the sieved chestnuts with a few tablespoons of Espagnole sauce or highly flavored gravy.
Adjust the seasonings to taste.

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.

Chestnut + saucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together255 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Veal + chestnuttop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together175 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Veal + saucetop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,072 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).