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In Matelotte Sauce

A dish of brains served in a sauce of white wine, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice with truffles, quails, mushrooms, and crayfish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Truffle and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

In Matelotte Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the brains as directed in recipe 786 and drain on a napkin.

  2. Cut the brains into scallops and arrange them in a circular order on a serving plate.

Make the sauce and garnish

  1. In a saucepan, combine white wine, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice to make the Matelotte sauce.

  2. Simmer the small button onions in butter until tender.

  3. Add the onions, truffles, quails, mushrooms, and crayfish tails to the sauce.

  4. Top the dish with the large crayfish and place the fried crouton in the center.

  5. Serve immediately.

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. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brains
Provide the main protein, whose delicate, creamy texture is the centerpiece of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and gentle browning to the small onions while they soften.
White wine
Provides acidity and liquid to form the base of the Matelotte sauce.
Truffles
Add an earthy, aromatic flavour that deepens the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, scallop, quail, mushroom, crayfish, bread, white wine):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, scallop, quail, mushroom, crayfish, bread, white wine. 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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