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Soup

Cream of Mushrooms

A creamy soup made from hot house mushrooms, butter, cream, and optional sherry, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,176 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Cream of Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cook hothouse mushrooms in water for nearly 2 hours.

  2. Press the cooked mushrooms to extract juice into the cooking water.

  3. Add small pieces of butter and 1 pint of cream thickened with a little rice flour.

  4. Stir in sherry if desired.

Serve

  1. Pour into cups and top with whipped cream before serving.

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 + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Mushroom + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Hothouse mushrooms
Provide the main flavour and, once pressed, the juice that makes up the soup base.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the soup.
Cream
Gives body and a silky texture to the soup.
Rice flour
Thickens the cream so the soup becomes smooth and lightly bodied.

The step that matters

Thickening the cream with rice flour. Flour must be mixed smoothly into the cream before it meets the hot liquid, otherwise it clumps. Starch thickens best when it is evenly dispersed and gently heated, so the soup stays silky rather than lumpy.

“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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