Skip to main content
Main

Modern Cookery

A crusted loaf of bread fried with butter, topped with a mushroom gravy seasoned with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crust

  1. Cut a crust about 1¼ inches thick from the bottom of the loaf.

  2. Fry the crust in good butter until light brown, slightly hollowing the inside first.

  3. Alternatively, butter the bread and grill it over gentle heat until golden.

Make the mushrooms

  1. In a pan, stew the mushrooms with butter, mace, and cayenne for 10 to 15 minutes.

  2. Add flour and cook for 3 to 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in gravy or broth and cook for 2 minutes.

  4. Season with salt and 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the crisp base that holds the mushroom filling.
Mushrooms
Supply the main filling and juices that moisten the bread.
Butter
Browns the crust and adds rich flavour to the frying and stewing.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a binding sauce.

The step that matters

Frying or grilling the crust. Frying in butter until light brown browns the bread through the Maillard reaction, giving flavour and a sturdy shell. Too little heat leaves it pale and soggy, while too much burns it before the inside is warmed.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, lemon, milk, nutmeg, mushroom, ketchup. 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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes