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Sauce

Mushroom Sauce

A sauce made with butter, flour, chicken stock, peppercorns, onion, carrot, parsley, mace, milk, and sliced mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and stir until combined.

  3. Pour in the chicken stock and add the peppercorns, onion, carrot, parsley, and mace.

  4. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Finish the sauce

  1. Stir in the milk and strain the mixture.

  2. Add the sliced mushrooms and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Cook for an additional 3 minutes.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour while it melts with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base that gives the sauce its savoury body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the sauce's flavour.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the butter. Stir the flour into the melted butter until smooth, then add the stock gradually. Cooking the flour in fat helps prevent lumps and gives the sauce a thickened, even texture.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, chicken, onion, carrot, parsley, milk):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, chicken, onion, carrot, parsley, milk. 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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