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To Stew Mushrooms

A simple stew of button mushrooms seasoned with salt, pepper, cream, butter, and served with bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Stew Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the mushrooms with coarse sea salt and a bit of flannel.

  2. Sprinkle the mushrooms with more salt and place them in a stewpan with peppercorns.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew gently until done, without adding water.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of cream or milk and a bit of butter.

  3. Bring to a boil and serve with sippets of 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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,500 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Large button mushrooms
Main ingredient that softens and releases its own liquid as it stews.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the mushroom juices.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounded flavour and glossy texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stew gently until done, without adding water. Mushrooms are about 90 percent water, so gentle heat lets them release their own juices to form a sauce. High heat or added water would boil the juices away or dilute them, leaving the mushrooms rubbery and the flavour thin.

“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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