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Mushrooms Russell

A sautéed mushroom dish with butter, onion, cream, served hot on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Mushrooms Russell

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the mushrooms

  1. Peel the mushrooms and place them in a chafing dish with melted butter.

  2. Add the finely sliced onion and cover the dish tightly.

  3. Cook for 30 minutes, adding salt and pepper to taste.

  4. Before removing from heat, stir in the cream.

Serve

  1. Serve hot on 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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Form the main body of the dish and release moisture as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while the mushrooms soften in the covered dish.
Spanish onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth as it softens in the cooking juices.
Pure cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the cooking juices.

The step that matters

Stirring in the cream before removing from heat. Cream can split or curdle when it boils for long or at high heat, so it is added at the end and the dish is taken off the heat before it is stirred in.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, pepper, cream. 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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