Name: Brown Mushroom Sauce, to Serve with Roast Meat, &C.
Ingredients: 1 pint button mushrooms; 1 pint good beef gravy; 1 tablespoon mushroom ketchup (if available); thickening of butter and flour

Why it works: Mushroom and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Brown Mushroom Sauce, to Serve with Roast Meat, &C.

Ingredients

1 pint button mushrooms
1 pint good beef gravy
1 tablespoon mushroom ketchup (if available)
thickening of butter and flour

Directions

Make the gravy

Put the gravy into a saucepan.
Thicken the gravy, stirring over the heat until it boils.

Prepare the mushrooms

Prepare the mushrooms by cutting off the stalks and wiping them clean.
If using large mushrooms, cut them into small pieces.

Simmer and serve

Add the mushrooms to the gravy and let them simmer gently for about 10 minutes.
Stir in the mushroom ketchup.
Serve.

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.

Mushroom + beeftop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,232 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ketchup + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,435 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Mushroom + ketchuptop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Button mushrooms: Provide the main body and earthy flavour, releasing juices that deepen the sauce as they simmer.
Beef gravy: Forms the savoury base and most of the liquid of the sauce.
Butter and flour: Flour starch swells when heated with liquid, thickening the gravy into a smooth sauce.
Mushroom ketchup: Adds concentrated savoury, umami depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy until it boils. Flour starch only swells and thickens fully when the liquid reaches a boil. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and can leave a raw floury taste, so keep stirring until it boils.

“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.

Roast Beef211 recipes

Beef Loaf175 recipes

Corned Beef87 recipes

Beef Broth67 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Brown Mushroom Sauce, to Serve with Roast Meat, &C.