Sotolon
Also written sotolone
Quick answer
The compound that smells of maple syrup, fenugreek and aged wine at once — extraordinarily potent, and detectable at concentrations lower than almost anything else in food.
What it does
Sotolon smells of maple syrup, burnt sugar and curry powder depending entirely on how much of it there is: it is one of the small class of compounds whose character changes qualitatively with concentration. It is the dominant note of fenugreek and the reason fenugreek and maple syrup smell alike despite having nothing whatever to do with one another. It is also present in aged sherry and vin jaune, in aged sake, and in long-cooked sugar. Its detection threshold is remarkably low, which is why a small quantity of fenugreek dominates a blend and why it lingers.
How it behaves when cooked
Four properties of the molecule, and what they mean at the stove.
- Volatility
- moderate
- Fat solubility
- moderate
- Water solubility
- moderate
- Heat stability
- high
Sotolon is stable, soluble in both fat and water, and detectable at very low concentrations, and the practical consequence of all three together is that fenugreek is nearly impossible to remove from a dish once it is in. It survives long cooking undiminished, it distributes into every phase of the dish, and it is perceptible far below the level at which other spices register — which is why fenugreek is measured carefully in a blend, why one seed too many is noticeable, and why the standard correction for an over-fenugreeked dish is to make more of the dish rather than to try to counter it. Toasting fenugreek deepens it and takes it bitter very quickly; the seed is among the most unforgiving in the cupboard on that count.
Spices that carry it
Recorded on the compound rather than on each spice, so the two cannot disagree.
- FenugreekPrincipal component
- Fenugreek leafMajor component
- Blue fenugreekContributing component
A different species used in Georgian cooking, milder and sweeter, carrying coumarin alongside the sotolon — which is why it reads as hay-and-maple rather than as the seed’s blunt curry note.
Questions this page answers
- what is sotolon
- what does sotolon do
- which spices contain sotolon
- what is sotolone