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Mushrooms, Stewed

Stewed mushrooms simmered in browned butter with mace, pepper, and cayenne, served on toast or with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the mushrooms and place them in an enamelled stewpan.

  2. Melt the butter and let it brown slightly, then pour it over the mushrooms.

Cook

  1. Stir gently and shake over moderate heat to distribute the butter.

  2. Add a pinch of mace or nutmeg, salt, white pepper, and cayenne to taste.

  3. Cover and cook until the mushrooms are done.

Serve

  1. Serve on toast or with a garnish of croutons.

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. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

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

  4. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. White pepper + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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 and release moisture as they cook.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness, and browning it gives a nutty aroma.

The step that matters

Cover and cook until the mushrooms are done. Mushrooms release a lot of water as they heat. Cooking covered lets that liquid form a stew, while uncovered cooking would dry them out. Stop when they are tender rather than leaving them to shrink and toughen.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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