French · Savoy · main

Diots au Vin Blanc

Diots au Vin Blanc reads umami 6.9, richness 5.8 and salinity 4.6 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a French · Savoy main, about 1 hr 26 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

• Umami & Savory — 7.6 / 10
• Sweet & Fruity — 3.4 / 10
• Sour & Bright — 3.5 / 10
• Bitter & Earthy — 1.4 / 10
• Rich & Fat — 6.9 / 10
• Aromatic & Spice — 3.2 / 10

The measured notes (of 18)

Umami 6.9 · Richness 5.8 · Salinity 4.6 · Nutty 3.6 · Fruity 2.8 · Allium 2.8 · Sourness 2.7 · Citrus 2.7 · Funk & Ferment 2.5 · Sweetness 2.1 · Herbaceous 2.1 · Floral 1.6 · Warm Spice 1.2 · Earthy 1.2 · Bitterness 1.1

What's in it (14)

• diots — 900 g
• onions — 450 g
• unsalted butter — 40 g
• peanut oil — 14 g
• dry white wine — 500 g
• chicken stock — 200 g
• all-purpose flour — 8 g
• thyme — 2 g
• bay leaf — 1 g
• crozets — 300 g
• gruyere — 60 g
• salt — 5 g
• freshly ground black pepper — 3 g
• flat-leaf parsley — 4 g

Time & effort: about 1 hr 26 min · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 38.2 kcal, 1.2 g protein, 2.2 g fat, 2.9 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains dairy — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (9 steps)

1. Diots are fresh, coarsely cut pork sausages from the Savoie valleys, sold plain or lightly smoked, and they are what a Savoyard eats on a working day. A good butcher's coarse fresh pork sausage is a fair stand-in, but a fine-textured banger is not — the loose, rough grind is what soaks up the wine.
2. Prick each sausage once with the point of a knife and no more. One hole lets the skin off without bursting; the row of stabs people give sausages drains out the fat and leaves them dry and grainy.
3. Melt the butter with the oil in a wide sauté pan over medium heat and colour the diots gently for 8 minutes, turning them so they take an even light brown on all sides. Do not let the pan get fierce — a fresh sausage split by high heat loses everything into the pan.
4. Lift them out. Add the onions to the fat and cook them over medium-low heat for 15 minutes, stirring, until they are soft, sweet and pale gold. Sprinkle the flour over and stir for 2 minutes to cook it out; this small amount is all the thickening the sauce gets and it should not taste of paste.
5. Pour in the white wine, scraping the base, and let it bubble hard for 3 minutes to drive off the raw alcohol. Add the stock, thyme and bay.
6. Return the diots, bring the pan to a bare simmer, cover and cook 40 minutes, turning them once halfway. The surface should barely move; boiling splits the skins and clouds the sauce.
7. Cook the crozets in plenty of well-salted boiling water for 12 to 15 minutes — buckwheat crozets are chewier and need longer than wheat pasta of the same size. Drain them, toss with the grated Beaufort until it strings, and grind over pepper.
8. Taste the sauce for salt, which will depend entirely on the sausages, and reduce it uncovered for a few minutes if it is thin. Serve the diots on the crozets with the onion sauce spooned over and the parsley scattered.
9. Substitutions: Roussette can stand in for the dry Savoie white wine.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

• French Onion Soup (Soupe à l'oignon) — French
• Braciole in Sunday Gravy — Italian-American
• Creamy Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Pasta — Italian-American
• Poulet au Vinaigre — French · Lyon
• Wild Mushroom and Leek Galette — French

Keep reading: what umami, richness, salinity mean in the flavor lexicon · the world's cuisines, by flavor.

See how this dish fits your palate — take the short taste test →

Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.