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Mushrooms, to Preserve

A method for preserving mushrooms by drying them in butter and clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mushrooms, to Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the mushrooms and soak them in cold water with a little lemon juice for 10 minutes.

  2. Dry the mushrooms carefully with a cloth.

Cook

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan, then add the mushrooms, lemon juice, pepper, and salt.

  2. Cook over low heat until the liquid evaporates and the mushrooms are dry, ensuring they do not stick to the pan.

Preserve and store

  1. Transfer the mushrooms to pots and pour clarified butter over the top.

  2. If not using immediately, they can be stored for a few days without covering.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Mushroom + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Form the main body of the dish, releasing liquid as they cook down until dry.
Butter
Carries the flavour and seals the mushrooms in fat, adding richness.
Clarified butter
Poured over the top to coat the mushrooms and help keep them from spoiling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps keep the mushrooms pale.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat until the mushrooms are dry. Mushrooms hold a lot of water. Cooking gently lets that liquid evaporate slowly without scorching, and drying them well before sealing with fat helps them keep.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, pepper):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Mangofits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, pepper. 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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