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Stewed Mushrooms

Stewed mushrooms simmered in water, butter, flour, cream, egg, and gravy, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Stewed Mushrooms

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 ↓

Stewed Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Choose button mushrooms of uniform size. Wipe them clean with a wet cloth and cut off the stalks.

  2. Place the mushrooms in a porcelain saucepan, cover with cold water, and stew gently for 15 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Add salt to taste, 1 tablespoon of butter divided into bits, and roll in flour. Boil for 3-4 minutes.

  2. Stir in 3 tablespoons of cream whipped with 1 egg. Stir for 2 minutes without boiling.

Alternative method

  1. Alternatively, stew cleaned mushrooms in water for 10 minutes. Strain partially, and cover with warm milk equal to the water poured off. Stew in milk for 5 minutes.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and add veal or chicken gravy or drawn butter. Thicken with flour mixed in cold milk and a beaten egg.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mushroom + vealtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, 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

Button mushrooms
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and soaking up the sauce as they stew.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the sauce clings to the mushrooms.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, and the whipped egg helps it set into the sauce.
Egg
Thickens the sauce gently when stirred in without boiling, adding body and richness.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream and egg without boiling. Egg proteins set when heated and can curdle or turn grainy if the sauce boils. Holding the mixture just below boiling keeps it smooth and thickened.

“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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