Name: Fricassee of Mushrooms
Ingredients: large mushrooms; ½ cup milk; 2-3 tablespoons white wine; 2-3 tablespoons browning sauce; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 tablespoons butter; fried bread for serving

Why it works: Mushroom and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Fricassee of Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the mushrooms

Peel the mushrooms and broil them on a gridiron over a clear fire until browned.
Place the mushrooms in a stewpan with milk and stew for 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

Add white wine and browning sauce.
Thicken with a mixture of flour and butter.
Serve on a hot dish with fried bread.

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.

Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,765 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Large mushrooms: Form the main body of the dish and soften into a tender, savoury filling.
Milk: Forms the liquid base of the sauce and keeps the mushrooms moist while they stew.
Flour: Thickens the liquid into a sauce when cooked with butter.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, and combines with flour to make the thickening mixture.
White wine: Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Browning sauce: Adds colour and a deeper, savoury flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken with a mixture of flour and butter. Flour must be cooked into the butter and liquid so it thickens smoothly; added raw or in lumps, it leaves a floury taste and uneven texture in the sauce.

“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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

Mushroom Soup60 recipes

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Fricassee of Mushrooms