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 ↓
Creamed Mushrooms
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Clean and slice the mushrooms.
Cook
In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat and cook the mushrooms for 8 minutes.
Sprinkle the flour over the mushrooms and stir until well mixed.
Add the cream and season with salt and pepper.
Cook until the mixture thickens, then serve over toast.
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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Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
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).
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Mushroom + creamtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Mushrooms
- Form the bulk of the dish and release moisture that cooks down into the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat that carries flavour while the mushrooms cook.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, creamy sauce.
- Cream
- Provides moisture and fat that set into a silky sauce as it thickens.
The step that matters
Cook until the mixture thickens. Flour needs continued gentle cooking in the liquid to fully swell and thicken the sauce, and cooking too briefly leaves a pasty, floury taste. Cooking too hard can cause the cream to split or scorch.
“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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