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Mushroom Sauce, for Fowls

A mushroom sauce for poultry made with 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

Ingredients

Directions

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

  2. Stew gently for 30 minutes.

  3. Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon before serving.

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
Give the sauce its main body and earthy flavour as they release their liquid while stewing.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps carry the mushroom flavour through the sauce.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, earthy flavours of the mushrooms and butter.
Mace
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 30 minutes. Mushrooms release a lot of water as they cook. Gentle heat lets them soften and release their juices slowly, so the sauce develops flavour without scorching or turning tough.

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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