Skip to main content
Sauce

Brown Mushroom Sauce

A sauce made from preserved mushrooms, mushroom liquor, sherry, and thin Espagnole sauce, simmered and seasoned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mushroom and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,176 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Brown Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Chop the mushrooms finely.

  2. Put them in a saucepan with the liquor and sherry.

  3. Cover the pan and bring to a boil.

  4. Add the Espagnole sauce, boil again, then season to taste.

Serve

  1. 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.

  1. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Mushroom + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,480 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sherry + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Preserved mushrooms
Provide the main mushroom flavour and savoury body once chopped.
Mushroom liquor
Adds concentrated mushroom flavour and liquid to build the sauce base.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sauce as it heats.
Espagnole sauce
Thickens the sauce and adds rich, savoury depth.

“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.

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipesDutch SauceDutch Sauce74 recipes