Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
To Cook Mushrooms
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mushrooms
Wash the mushrooms in cold water.
If the mushrooms are large, skin them. Cut each stem across the end. Inspect the stems for holes; if any are found, follow them up to locate worms. If the stems are solid, the mushrooms are good.
Drain the mushrooms when they are entirely clean.
Make the sauce
Put a lump of butter the size of an egg into a saucepan. When the butter bubbles, stir in one tablespoonful of flour.
Thin the mixture with one-half pint of milk. Flavor the sauce with salt and a little red pepper.
When the flour is cooked, stir in the mushrooms. Let the mushrooms boil for two or three minutes.
Serve
Serve the sauce on toast or in shells.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1 cup (125g) all-purpose | 455 |
| Milk | 1 cup (244ml) whole | 149 |
| Butter | 1 tbsp (14g) | 102 |
| Egg | 1 large egg (50g) | 78 |
| Mushroom | 1/2 cup sliced (35g) | 15 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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. See the original page.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
-
Milk + mushroomtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,231 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Mushrooms
- Form the body of the sauce and give it its main flavor.
- Flour
- Cooked with butter, it thickens the milk into a smooth sauce.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into sauce.
- Butter
- Fat that cooks the flour and carries flavor through the sauce.
The step that matters
Cook the flour in the butter before adding milk. Stirring flour into melted butter and cooking it briefly coats the starch in fat, which keeps the sauce from clumping when the milk is added and removes a raw floury taste.
“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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