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Creamed Mushroom Soup

A creamy soup made with mushrooms, butter, flour, cream, and chicken stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Creamed Mushroom Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. If using fresh mushrooms, skin, wash, and break them into pieces.

  2. Sauté the mushrooms in butter until tender and yellow.

Make the soup

  1. Add the flour to the mushrooms, then stir in the cream.

  2. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil.

  3. Stir the mixture into the hot chicken stock and serve quickly.

  4. Serve with croutons or bread fingers.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,500 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Butter
Melts with the mushrooms and carries their flavour while they soften and brown lightly.
Flour
Thickens the cream and stock into a smooth, body-rich soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and supplies its savoury flavour.
Mushrooms
Provide the main earthy flavour and a tender, meaty texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture into the hot stock. Flour-thickened cream can clump or curdle if it meets hot liquid unevenly or boils too hard. Adding it gradually to hot stock while stirring helps it blend smoothly and stay silky.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, cream, butter, mushroom, flour):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cream, butter, mushroom, flour. 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.

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