Skip to main content
Main

Mushrooms in Gravy

Mushrooms in gravy is a savory sauce made with mushrooms, onion, and a seasoned gravy base.

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

Why it works: Nutmeg and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mushrooms in Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Make the gravy and thicken it with flour.

  2. Season the gravy with salt, cayenne, and nutmeg.

  3. Add the browning sauce and stir well.

Finish and simmer

  1. Add the mushrooms and chopped onion.

  2. Simmer for about 10 minutes.

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 + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  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

Mushroom buttons
Main vegetable that becomes tender and absorbs the flavour of the gravy as it simmers.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the mushrooms rather than running thin.
Gravy
Forms the sauce base that carries the flavour and moisture of the dish.
Browning sauce
Adds a deeper brown colour and savoury, slightly roasted flavour to the gravy.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth as it softens in the simmering gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with flour. Flour must be fully mixed into the gravy before it is heated and simmered. Stirred in well and cooked, the starch swells and thickens the sauce evenly; clumps left undissolved stay floury and grainy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, nutmeg, pepper, flour, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, nutmeg, pepper, flour, sauce. 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 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes