Why it works: Mushroom and fish work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 444 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓
Mushroom Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Combine 1 pint of very stiff Aulmande Sauce with ⅓ cup of mushroom liquor and 8 ounces of cooked button mushrooms.
Thicken 1 pint of fish veloute with the yolks of 4 eggs and finish with ⅓ cup of mushroom liquor.
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.
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Mushroom + fishtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together444 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Sauce + mushroomtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,480 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sauce + fishtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,487 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Mushroom + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,987 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,782 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
- Aulmande sauce
- Forms the thick, stiff body of the sauce.
- Mushroom liquor
- Adds concentrated mushroom flavour and moisture.
- Button mushrooms
- Add bite and earthy mushroom flavour.
- Fish veloute
- Provides the smooth base that the egg yolks thicken.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the veloute and add richness.
The step that matters
Thickening the veloute with egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, and adding them to a hot liquid too quickly can scramble them into lumps. Whisking the yolks with some warm veloute first, then returning the mixture to the pan, keeps the sauce smooth and evenly 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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