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Stewed Mushrooms

A savory mushroom stew made with butter, lemon, flour, cream, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Stewed Mushrooms

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 ↓

Stewed Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the mushrooms.

  2. Soak them in water with a little vinegar.

  3. Drain the mushrooms.

Stew

  1. Place them in a stew pan with butter, white pepper, coarse sea salt, and lemon juice.

  2. Cover the pan tightly.

  3. Stew for 25 minutes.

  4. Stew longer if mushrooms are not tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the butter with flour.

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

  3. Add grated nutmeg.

  4. Skim off any floating butter particles.

  5. Serve on a hot dish.

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.

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.

  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

Mushrooms
Form the body of the stew and release juices that become part of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping the mushrooms cook gently.
Flour
Thickens the buttery juices into a smooth, lightly bound sauce.
Cream or rich milk
Adds moisture and richness, making the sauce creamy and smooth.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of butter and cream.

The step that matters

Gradually add cream or milk to the flour-thickened butter. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

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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