Name: Mushroom Sauce
Ingredients: a pint of small button mushrooms; a piece of butter rolled in a large proportion of flour; one among; pepper; salt

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 ↓

Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Wash a pint of small button mushrooms,--remove the stems and the outside skin. Stew them slowly in veal gravy or in milk or cream, seasoning them with pepper and salt, and adding a piece of butter rolled in a large proportion of flour. Stew them till quite tender, now and then taking off the cover of the pan to stir them.
The flavour will be heightened by having salted a few the night before in a covered dish, to extract the juice, and then stirring it into the sauce while stewing.
This sauce may be served up with poultry, game, or beef-steaks.
In gathering mushrooms take only those that are of a dull pearl colour on the outside, and that have the under part tinged with pale pink.
Boil an onion with them. If there is a poisonous one among them, the onion will turn black. Then throw away the whole.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

578Calories

16 gProtein

13 gFat

99 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 5 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Mushroom	1/2 cup sliced (35g)	15
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Salt	1 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 Eliza Leslie. 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.

Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Mushroom + flourtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,253 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).