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Mushrooms Stewed in Cream

A creamy mushroom stew made by simmering mushrooms in a thickened cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,500 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Mushrooms Stewed in Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Remove stems and peel the caps of the mushrooms.

  2. Break large mushrooms into pieces and leave small ones whole.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Scald ¾ pint of cream in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, mix 1 teaspoon of sifted flour with 2 tablespoons of cold cream to form a paste.

  3. Add the flour paste to the scalded cream and cook until slightly thickened.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the mushrooms and let them simmer gently for about 10 minutes.

  2. Stir in ¾ teaspoon of salt and ¼ teaspoon of white pepper.

  3. Serve in a deep dish or on slices of browned toast.

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 + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,500 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Cream + white peppertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,439 recipes
  5. Mushroom + white peppertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together648 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl butyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main body and earthy flavour of the creamed dish as they soften in the sauce.
Cream
Forms the rich, smooth base of the sauce and adds moisture and fat.
Flour
Thickens the scalded cream into a smooth sauce that coats the mushrooms.

The step that matters

Adding the flour paste to the scalded cream. Flour mixed into cold cream first forms a paste that disperses evenly. Stirring it into hot cream while cooking lets starch granules swell and thicken the sauce smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, cream, 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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