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Mushroom Powder

A dried mushroom powder made by simmering mushrooms with onions, cloves, peppercorns, mace, and ground pepper, then grinding the dried product.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Mushroom Powder

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash the mushrooms and trim away defective parts.

  2. Place mushrooms in a saucepan without water, along with onions, cloves, peppercorns, mace, and ground pepper.

Cook and dry

  1. Heat the mixture and simmer slowly until mushrooms absorb all their liquid, being careful not to burn them.

  2. When nearly dry, spread mushrooms on pans and place in a 350°F (175°C) oven to dry completely.

  3. Once dry, beat or grind the mushrooms to a powder.

Store

  1. Store the powder in tin cans or tightly corked bottles, excluding all air, and keep in a cool, dry 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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Mushroom + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,663 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh mushrooms
Form the main body of the powder once their moisture is cooked off and dried.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aromatic flavor as they simmer with the mushrooms.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly without scorching. Mushrooms release their liquid and then have little moisture left. Once the liquid is gone, sugars and proteins in the dry mushrooms can scorch quickly, so low, gentle heat and close attention prevent burnt flavor.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, onion, clove, 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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