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Brown Mushroom Sauce

A sauce made by simmering brown sauce with mushroom liquor and mushrooms, optionally flavored with sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,176 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Brown Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Add the liquor from the can of mushrooms and half of the mushrooms to the brown sauce.

  2. Stew for five minutes.

  3. If using sherry, add it and allow the sauce to cook down if it becomes too thin.

  4. Serve with fillet of beef, roast beef, or steak.

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 + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Sauce + mushroomtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,480 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + sherrytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sauce
Forms the base of the sauce and provides its main body and savoury flavour.
Mushrooms
Add meaty texture and earthy flavour as they soften during stewing.
Liquor from a can of mushrooms
Adds moisture and concentrated mushroom flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the sauce down after adding sherry. If the sauce is too thin, letting it reduce evaporates excess water, which thickens it and concentrates its flavour. Adding sherry thins the sauce, so watching its consistency matters.

“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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