Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓
Mushroom Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.
Add the flour and stir until brown.
Pour in the water or chicken broth and essence of mushroom, stirring until smooth.
Season with salt and pepper.
Add the mushrooms and boil for 2 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in the sherry or Madeira wine.
Serve
Serve around the fillet of beef.
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.
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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Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,172 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).
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Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,176 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).
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Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and liquid.
- Butter
- Carries flavour and forms the base roux with the flour.
- Mushrooms
- Add earthy mushroom flavour and body to the sauce.
- Sherry or madeira wine
- Adds acidity and depth of flavour when stirred in off the heat.
The step that matters
Stir the flour until brown. Cooking the flour in butter develops a nutty colour and flavour, but it can scorch quickly over heat. Keep stirring so it browns evenly before liquid is added, or the sauce can taste bitter and lumpy.
“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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