Why it works: Mushroom and butter 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 ↓
Mushroom Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pick and peel the mushrooms.
Wash them clean and place in a saucepan with veal gravy or milk.
Make the sauce
Add pepper, salt, and butter mixed with flour, then stir together.
Cook over gentle heat until tender.
Skim and strain the sauce.
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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Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Mushroom + vealtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,446 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Mushroom + flourtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,253 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mushrooms
- Provide the main flavour and body of the sauce as they soften and release juices.
- Veal gravy or milk
- Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour and gives the sauce its moisture.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and helps the flour blend smoothly into the liquid.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
The step that matters
Cook over gentle heat. Gentle heat lets the flour starch swell and thicken the liquid evenly. Boiling hard can scorch the bottom of the pan, make the sauce lumpy, and give it a burnt taste.
“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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