Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Mushroom Fowbeb
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mushrooms
Wash the mushrooms thoroughly and cut off the stalks.
In a saucepan, combine the mushrooms with mace, ground pepper, onions, coarse sea salt, spices, nutmeg, and butter.
Cook until the liquid evaporates, then place the mushrooms on sieves to dry.
Grind and store
Once dry, grind the mushrooms to a powder and store in a tightly corked bottle.
To flavor soup or gravy, add 1 teaspoon of the powder a minute or two before serving.
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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Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,686 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,557 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
-
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,400 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mushrooms
- Form the powder's base; cooking off their liquid concentrates their savory flavor.
- Butter
- Adds fat that carries the seasonings and helps the mushrooms brown gently as they cook.
- Onions
- Contribute savory sweetness and aroma as they cook down with the mushrooms.
- Mace
- Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the mushrooms.
The step that matters
Cook until the liquid evaporates. Mushrooms release a lot of water as they cook. If it is not fully driven off, the mushrooms stay damp, cannot dry properly on the sieves, and may spoil or clump instead of grinding into a fine powder.
Swap the nutmeg
The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, mace, pepper, onion, clove, butter):
- Thymefits about as well
- Nutmegthe original
- Allspicefits about as well
- Marjoramfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, mace, pepper, onion, clove, butter. 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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