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Fricassee of Mushrooms, Poulette

A mushroom fricassee made with poulette sauce, butter, shallots, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and shallot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fricassee of Mushrooms, Poulette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the mushrooms and cut them into ½-inch dice.

  2. Mince a few shallots and sauté them in butter.

Cook

  1. Add the mushrooms and cook slowly for 10 minutes.

  2. Stir in the reduced poulette sauce and simmer for 20 minutes.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt, white pepper, and a little grated nutmeg.

Serve

  1. Serve in paper cases, croustades, or romaine cups.

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. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mushroom + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,988 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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 dish and release moisture as they cook down.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor while the shallots and mushrooms cook.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet aromatic base that deepens the flavor of the fricassee.
Reduced poulette sauce
Provides the creamy, thickened sauce that binds the mushrooms together.

The step that matters

Cooking the mushrooms slowly. Mushrooms hold a lot of water. Cooking them gently lets that moisture evaporate and allows them to brown slightly, concentrating their flavor instead of steaming them into a watery mass.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, shallot, sauce, nutmeg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, shallot, sauce, 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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