Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Mushroom Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mushrooms
Pick, peel, and wash the mushrooms; cut them into pieces with a silver knife.
Place the mushrooms in a porcelain saucepan; add lemon juice, boiling water, and coarse sea salt.
Stir the mushrooms with a silver fork and cook for 5 minutes.
Let the mushrooms cool, then drain and chop them finely.
Make the soup
Put 1 quart of milk into a double boiler.
Rub together the butter and flour, then stir into the milk.
Cook until creamy, then add the chopped mushrooms and season with salt and pepper.
If using white mushrooms, add the egg yolk just before removing from heat.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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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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Mushroom + milktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Form the main body of the soup and give it their earthy flavor.
- Milk
- Forms the creamy liquid base of the soup.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavor, and helps build the thickened base with flour.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk into a creamy, smooth base when cooked.
- Egg yolk
- Adds richness and helps thicken the soup when added near the end.
The step that matters
Cooking the flour and butter into the milk. Stirring the butter and flour into the milk gives a smooth, creamy base; if lumps form or the mixture is not cooked long enough, the soup can taste pasty and stay grainy.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, milk, butter, flour, pepper, egg):
- Lemonthe original
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutfits less well
- Plumfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, milk, butter, flour, pepper, egg. 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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