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Sauce

White Mushroom Sauce

A creamy sauce made with bechamel, veal stock, preserved mushrooms, mushroom liquor, Chablis wine, lemon juice, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,632 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol, which smells allspice, anise. The science ↓

White Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the veal stock and Bechamel sauce together until reduced by half.

  2. Add the sliced mushrooms, mushroom liquor, lemon juice, and Chablis wine.

  3. Boil again, skim off any foam, season to taste, and stir in the cream.

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 + winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  2. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bechamel sauce
Provides a thick, creamy base that gives the sauce body and richness.
Veal stock
Adds savory depth and gelatin that helps the sauce feel full-bodied.
Preserved mushrooms
Supply the main mushroom flavor and tender texture to the sauce.
Chablis wine
Adds acidity and aromatic complexity that brightens the rich sauce.
Cream
Adds fat and smoothness, softening the sauce's flavor and texture at the end.

The step that matters

Reducing the stock and Bechamel sauce. Boiling concentrates flavor and thickens the mixture as water evaporates. Reducing by half too little leaves the sauce thin, while overreducing can make it salty and overly thick.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, veal, mushroom, wine, cream):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Grapefits about as well
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, veal, mushroom, wine, cream. 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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