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Sauce

Mushrooms

A creamy mushroom sauce made with fresh mushrooms, milk, cream, butter, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Clean the mushrooms and place them in a saucepan.

  2. Add water, milk, and salt.

  3. Set on high heat and boil three times.

  4. Remove from heat and grate in nutmeg and beaten mace.

  5. Add cream and the butter rolled in flour.

  6. Return to heat, shaking occasionally until thickened.

  7. Serve immediately, being careful not to curdle.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main body and earthy flavor of the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Butter rolled in flour
Acts as a roux that thickens the sauce as it heats.
Milk
Adds moisture and mild richness to the sauce base.

The step that matters

Returning the sauce to heat after adding cream. Dairy proteins can curdle or separate when overheated or boiled hard, so the sauce should be heated gently while shaking and thickening, then served right away.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, milk, nutmeg, cream, butter, flour. 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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