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 ↓
Mushrooms, Stewed
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut off the ends of the stalks and clean the mushroom buttons.
Soak them in a basin of water with a little lemon juice.
Remove the mushrooms from the water, avoiding sediment, and place them in a stewpan.
Stew and finish
Add fresh butter, white pepper, salt, and lemon juice.
Cover the pan and let the mushrooms stew gently for 20 to 25 minutes.
Thicken the butter with flour and gradually add enough cream or milk to achieve a proper sauce consistency.
Stir in the grated nutmeg.
If the mushrooms are not tender, stew for an additional 5 minutes.
Remove any floating butter and serve.
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.
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Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Mushroom buttons
- Form the main body of the dish and release moisture that becomes part of the sauce as they stew.
- Fresh butter
- Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping the mushrooms soften gently in the pan.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter and liquid into a smooth sauce that coats the mushrooms.
- Cream or milk
- Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the thickened butter into a proper sauce.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps keep the mushrooms pale.
The step that matters
Thickening the butter with flour. Adding the flour to melted butter first cooks off its raw taste and lets it dissolve smoothly. Adding cream or milk gradually keeps the mixture from clumping into lumps.
Swap the white pepper
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, lemon, flour, cream, nutmeg):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Thymefits better
- Marjoramfits better
- 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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