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Fresh Mushrooms, Stewed

A dish of fresh mushrooms stewed with butter, flour, cream, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom 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 ↓

Fresh Mushrooms, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and wash the mushrooms, then cut off the stems.

Cook

  1. In a chafing dish over boiling water, combine the butter, flour, and mushrooms.

  2. Cook for 12 to 15 minutes.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, or add the cream mixed with the egg yolk.

  4. Cook for an additional 3 minutes after adding the cream mixture.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 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 + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,500 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Mushrooms
Form the main body of the dish and release moisture as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor while the mushrooms cook.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the mushrooms are coated in a loose sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce.
Egg yolk
Thickens the cream mixture, helping the sauce become smooth and creamy.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and egg yolk mixture. Egg yolk thickens when heated gently but can curdle or scramble if the mixture boils. Keep the heat low and stir steadily once the cream is added so the sauce stays smooth.

“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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