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Preserve

To Preserve Mushrooms

A method for preserving mushrooms by cooking them with butter, lemon juice, pepper, and salt until dry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Preserve Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the mushrooms, put them into cold water with a little lemon juice; take them out and dry them very carefully in a cloth.

  2. Add 3 oz. of butter, pepper, salt to taste, juice of 1 lemon, and clarified butter to each quart of mushrooms.

Cook

  1. Put the butter into a stewpan capable of holding the mushrooms; when it is melted, add the mushrooms, lemon juice, and a seasoning of pepper and salt; draw them down over a slow fire, and let them remain until their liquor is boiled away and they have become quite dry, but be careful not to allow them to stick to the bottom of the stewpan.

Store and serve

  1. When done, put them into pots and pour over the top clarified butter.

  2. If wanted for immediate use, they will keep good a few days without being covered over.

  3. To re-warm them, put the mushrooms into a stewpan, strain the butter from them, and they will be ready for use.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

18Calories
1 gProtein
0 gFat
5 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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.

  1. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms (in the method)
Main ingredient that softens and releases liquor, then concentrates as it dries in butter.
Butter (in the method)
Carries flavor and richness, and seals the mushrooms when poured over them for keeping.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the mushrooms and helps keep their color light.

The step that matters

Drawing down over a slow fire. Gentle heat lets the mushroom liquor evaporate slowly so the mushrooms dry without scorching. Too much heat or too little stirring makes them stick to the pan and burn.

“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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