Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓
Mushrooms on Toast
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Peel a quart of mushrooms and cut off a little of the root end.
Melt an ounce of butter in the frying pan.
Cook the steak
Fry half a pound of raw minced steak in the butter.
Add two saltspoonfuls of salt, a pinch of cayenne, and a gill of hot water.
Fry until the juices are extracted from the meat.
Tilt the pan and squeeze the meat with the back of the spoon until there is nothing left but dry meat, then remove it.
Finish and serve
Add the mushrooms to the liquid.
If there is not enough liquid, add more butter.
Toss them about a moment.
Pour out on hot toast.
Optionally add a little sherry to the dish before removing from the fire.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Beef | 100g cooked | 250 |
| Butter | 1 tbsp (14g) | 102 |
| Mushroom | 1/2 cup sliced (35g) | 15 |
| Cayenne | 1 tsp (1.8g) | 6 |
| Salt | 1 tsp (6g) | 0 |
| Water | not in our table | 0 |
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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Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mushrooms
- Form the main bulk of the dish and release moisture that mixes with the meat juices.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and helps the meat and mushrooms brown in the pan.
- Minced steak
- Provides the meaty base, with its juices cooked down to flavour the mushrooms.
The step that matters
Squeezing the meat until dry. Pressing out the meat's juices and cooking off the liquid leaves dry meat that browns rather than steams. Mushrooms added too early or with too little liquid can dry out, so add butter if the pan runs short.
“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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