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Mushroom Sauce, for Fowls, Sj-c

A sauce made from fresh mushrooms, butter, mace, salt, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 12,525 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Mushroom Sauce, for Fowls, Sj-c

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the mushrooms

  1. In a stewpan, combine the mushrooms, butter, mace, and salt.

  2. Stew gently for 30 minutes.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add a liaison and squeeze in the lemon juice.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,633 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Mace + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together6,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Mushroom + macetop 21% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together2,529 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Release their moisture and savory flavor, forming the body of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel, and helps carry flavor.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savory flavor of the mushrooms.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the liaison. A liaison thickens by heat-setting, so it can curdle or turn grainy if the sauce boils hard. Keep the heat gentle and stir well while it is added.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

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

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  3. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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