Name: Gravy for Fillets and Mushrooms
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon butter; 1 dessertspoon flour; 1 glass port wine; 1 dessertspoon vinegar or lime juice; 1 dessertspoon red currant jelly; cooked fillets; cooked mushroom heads

Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Gravy for Fillets and Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

Skim the cooled gravy.
Melt butter in a saucepan.
Whisk in flour until smooth.
Gradually add the cooled gravy while stirring.
Pour in port wine, vinegar or lime juice, and red currant jelly; mix well.

Serve

Heat the fillets and mushroom heads in the gravy.
Garnish the dish and serve hot.

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.

Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Port wine + red curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Port wine + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together570 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Port wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together598 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
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

Butter: Melted fat that combines with flour to form a roux for thickening.
Flour: Thickens the gravy as it cooks with the melted butter.
Port wine: Adds depth and a sweet, rich flavour to the gravy.
Red currant jelly: Adds sweetness and body to balance the acidity of the gravy.
Vinegar or lime juice: Adds acidity that brightens and balances the rich, sweet flavours.

The step that matters

Whisk in flour until smooth. Flour must be cooked briefly in the melted butter and whisked well, or it forms lumps and tastes raw. Adding the cooled gravy gradually while stirring keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, port wine, vinegar, mushroom):

Figfits better
Plumfits better
Cherryfits about as well
Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, port wine, vinegar, mushroom. 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.

Mushroom Soup60 recipes

Tomato Soup526 recipes

Brown Bread461 recipes

Mutton Broth292 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Gravy for Fillets and Mushrooms