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Mushrooms Stewed in Gravy

A beef and mushroom stew simmered in a butter and flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mushrooms Stewed in Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Melt 2 ounces of butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Slice the onions into thin rings and fry them in the butter until light brown.

  3. Cut the beef and bacon into small square pieces and add to the saucepan.

  4. Pour in 1 teacup of water and boil for 10 minutes, stirring often.

  5. Season with salt, pepper, and add the cloves.

  6. Add 3 quarts of water, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours.

  7. Strain the gravy and let it cool, then remove the fat.

Thicken and add mushrooms

  1. For thickening, melt 2 ounces of butter in a saucepan, stir in 3 ounces of flour until light brown.

  2. When cool, add this mixture to the strained gravy and bring to a quick boil.

  3. Clean the mushrooms, removing most of the stalks and peeling the tops.

  4. Add the mushrooms to 1 pint of the prepared brown gravy and simmer gently for 30 minutes.

Season and serve

  1. Season with grated nutmeg, cayenne pepper, and salt to taste, and serve hot.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Shin of beef
Breaks down during long simmering to give the gravy body and rich meaty flavour.
Onions
Fried until light brown, they add sweetness and savoury depth to the gravy.
Flour
Cooked in butter to form a roux that thickens the gravy.
Butter
Carries the frying of the onions and forms the fat base of the roux.
Mushrooms
Simmered in the gravy, they add earthy flavour and extra texture.
Bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that flavours the stew as it simmers.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour roux until light brown. Flour must be cooked in fat long enough to lose its raw taste and thicken well; adding it to hot or cold liquid too quickly can cause lumps, so the mixture should cool before it is added to the gravy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, beef, pepper, clove, flour, mushroom, 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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