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Sauce

Brown Sauce with Mushrooms

A savory brown sauce made with bacon, flour, stock, Worcestershire sauce, mushroom catsup, sherry, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,176 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Brown Sauce with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice the bacon and place it in a frying pan to render the fat.

  2. Remove the bacon and add flour to the pan, stirring until smooth.

  3. Pour in the stock and stir continuously until it boils.

  4. Add Worcestershire sauce, mushroom catsup, salt, pepper, and mushrooms.

  5. Heat the mushrooms thoroughly, then remove from heat and stir in the sherry.

  6. If using fresh mushrooms, cook them first in a little butter, stirring constantly.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  3. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sherry + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Flour + mushroomtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the bacon fat.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it boils.
Mushrooms
Provide the main savory, earthy flavour and body of the sauce.
Bacon
Its rendered fat carries flavour into the pan and adds savoury richness.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour and stock. Flour added to fat must be stirred smooth before the stock goes in, and the stock must be stirred constantly until it boils. Otherwise the flour clumps and the sauce will be lumpy rather than smooth.

“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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