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Mushrooms, Stewed

A savory stew of button mushrooms cooked in butter, lemon, and cream with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mushrooms, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Cut off the ends of the stalks and clean the mushroom buttons.

  2. Soak them in a basin of water with a little lemon juice.

  3. Remove the mushrooms from the water, avoiding sediment, and place them in a stewpan.

Stew and finish

  1. Add fresh butter, white pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

  2. Cover the pan and stew gently for 20 to 25 minutes.

  3. Thicken the butter with flour and gradually add enough cream or milk to achieve the desired sauce consistency.

  4. Stir in the grated nutmeg.

  5. If the mushrooms are not tender, stew for an additional 5 minutes.

  6. Remove any floating butter and serve.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Mushroom buttons
Form the main body of the dish, softening as they stew and absorbing the butter.
Fresh butter
Provides richness and moisture, and forms the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the buttery liquid into a smooth, coating sauce.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the thickened sauce to the desired consistency.

The step that matters

Thickening the butter with flour. Adding the flour all at once can form lumps, so it is best worked into the butter first and the cream or milk added gradually. Gradual addition lets the starch hydrate evenly, giving a smooth sauce.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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