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Mushroom Sauce

A creamy sauce made by stewing sliced mushrooms with butter, milk, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Stew the mushrooms in just enough water to cover them until tender.

  2. Drain the mushrooms without pressing them.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the cream, butter, and seasonings to the mushrooms.

  2. Stew over medium heat, stirring constantly until it begins to thicken.

  3. Mix the flour with a little cold milk, then add to the sauce.

  4. Boil briefly and serve as gravy.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mushroom + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main body and earthy flavor of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Milk or cream
Forms the liquid base that carries the sauce and gives it body.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the sauce its gravy-like body.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour mixture. Flour must be mixed smoothly into cold milk before adding, because dry flour dropped into hot liquid clumps. Constant stirring over medium heat keeps the starch dispersed so the sauce thickens evenly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, milk, flour, nutmeg. 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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