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To Stew Mushrooms

A stew of button mushrooms cooked with salt, pepper, butter, flour, heavy cream, and toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Stew Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Rub the large button mushrooms with coarse sea salt and a bit of flannel.

  2. Cut out the fur and remove the skin from the smaller mushrooms.

  3. Sprinkle all mushrooms with salt and place them in a stewpan with peppercorns.

Stew and finish

  1. Simmer slowly until cooked through.

  2. Add a small amount of butter and flour, then stir in heavy cream.

  3. Bring to a boil and serve with toasted bread slices.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  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. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Large button mushrooms
Form the main body of the dish, softening as they stew.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the cream forms a body rather than running thin.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and richness, creating a smooth, creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil after adding the cream. Flour needs to reach a boil to fully thicken the sauce, but cream can split or scorch if it boils too hard or too long. Heat gently and stir constantly.

“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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