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Mushrooms for Winter Use

A method of preserving small button mushrooms in butter, salt, and lemon juice, stored in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Mushrooms for Winter Use

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Wash and wipe the mushrooms to remove grit.

Cook the mushrooms

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the cloves, salt, and lemon juice to the butter.

  3. Once hot, add the mushrooms and toss them briefly in the butter.

Jar and store

  1. Transfer the mushrooms to jars and pour an inch or two of melted butter on top.

  2. Let the jars cool, then add a layer of salt on top to preserve.

  3. Cover the jars to keep out dust and store in a cool place.

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. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Clove + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Lemon + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Main ingredient that is preserved and carries the flavor and texture of the dish.
Butter
Fat that coats the mushrooms and seals the jars, adding richness and helping preserve them.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps keep the mushrooms fresh-tasting.

The step that matters

Letting the jars cool before adding the salt layer. Salt added to hot, freshly cooked mushrooms can dissolve unevenly and the butter cap must fully cover the mushrooms, since any exposed mushroom can spoil; the cap must be complete and undisturbed.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, clove, mushroom. 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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