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Mushrooms, Stewed

A savory stew of button mushrooms cooked with butter, lemon, and spices, finished with cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mushrooms, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the ends of the stalks and neatly pare the mushroom buttons.

  2. Soak them in a basin of water with a little lemon juice.

  3. Remove the mushrooms from the water, avoiding the sediment, and place them in a stewpan with the butter, white pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

Stew and finish

  1. Cover the pan and let the mushrooms stew gently for 20 to 25 minutes.

  2. If the mushrooms are not tender, stew them for an additional 5 minutes.

  3. Thicken the butter with the flour.

  4. Gradually add enough cream or milk to achieve the desired sauce consistency.

  5. Stir in the grated nutmeg.

  6. Remove any floating butter and serve.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Mushroom buttons
Form the body of the dish, softening as they stew in butter.
Butter
Carries the flavour and enriches the sauce, adding richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the buttery juices into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and body, loosening the thickened sauce to the desired consistency.

The step that matters

Thickening the butter with flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter before liquid is added, otherwise it stays raw-tasting and clumps. Adding cream or milk gradually keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, lemon, flour, cream, 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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