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Puree of Mushrooms

A creamy mushroom puree made with butter, lemon juice, and béchamel sauce, strained for smoothness.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Puree of Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Peel the mushrooms and soak them in water with lemon juice to keep them white.

  2. Chop the mushrooms and place them in a saucepan with butter and lemon juice.

Cook and strain

  1. Cook over medium heat for a few minutes.

  2. Add the béchamel sauce and bring to a boil.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Mushroom + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Mushroom + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,480 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Provide the main body and earthy flavour of the puree.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that helps keep the mushrooms pale by slowing browning.
Béchamel sauce
Adds creaminess and body, thickening the puree.

The step that matters

Soaking the peeled mushrooms in lemon water. Cut and peeled mushrooms oxidise quickly, turning brown. Acidic lemon water slows this enzymatic browning, so soaking promptly keeps the puree pale.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, sauce. 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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