Skip to main content
Main

Mushroom Stew

A mushroom stew made with veal gravy or white broth, seasoned with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and thickened with butter and flour or arrowroot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Mushroom Stew

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the mushrooms finely, but do not fry them to avoid blackening the sauce.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the mushrooms, veal gravy or broth, pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  3. Let the mixture stew until the mushrooms are tender.

  4. Add the butter rolled in flour or arrowroot to thicken the stew.

  5. Simmer for a few more minutes and serve, adding a little wine if desired.

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

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Mushrooms
Provide the main bulk and earthy flavor of the stew.
Veal gravy or white broth
Forms the liquid base that the stew cooks in.
Butter
Adds richness and, kneaded with flour, helps thicken the stew.
Flour or arrowroot
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, body-rich sauce when mixed with butter.

The step that matters

Do not fry the mushrooms. Frying chopped mushrooms can brown and darken them, which blackens the sauce and changes its pale appearance. Gentle stewing in liquid keeps the color light.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

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

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes