Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Mushrooms

A dish of mushrooms simmered in butter, lemon juice, flour, and nutmeg, finished with cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Stewed Mushrooms

Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stewed Mushrooms

6 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the ends of the stalks, and pare neatly a pint of mushroom-buttons.

  2. Put them into a basin of water, with a little lemon-juice, as they are done.

  3. When all are prepared, take them from the water with the hands, to avoid the sediment, and put them into a stewpan with the fresh butter, white pepper, salt, and the juice of 1/2 lemon.

Stew and finish

  1. Cover the pan closely, and let the mushrooms stew gently from 20 to 25 minutes.

  2. Then thicken the butter with the above proportion of flour, add gradually sufficient cream, or cream and milk, to make the sauce of a proper consistency, and put in the grated nutmeg.

  3. If the mushrooms are not perfectly tender, stew them for 5 minutes longer, remove every particle of butter which may be floating on the top, and serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

485Calories
14 gProtein
2 gFat
101 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mushroom + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,988 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Mushroom + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushroom-buttons
Form the body of the dish, softening as they stew to a tender texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter so the cream sauce clings to the mushrooms.
Cream (in the method)
Adds richness and body, giving the sauce a smooth, coating consistency.
Butter (in the method)
Provides fat for gentle stewing and carries flavour through the mushrooms.

The step that matters

Stewing gently under a closed lid. Mushrooms are mostly water. A tightly covered pan at low heat lets them soften in their own juices without boiling dry or toughening. Checking tenderness before adding the sauce prevents a stringy or watery result.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, flour, nutmeg, lemon):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, flour, nutmeg, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More stewed mushrooms recipes

on Toast 3 See all 138 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes