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Mushrooms, Stewed

A simple stew of chopped mushrooms cooked in butter and brown sauce, seasoned with salt and pepper, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mushrooms, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and wash the mushrooms thoroughly, then remove the stalks.

Cook

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan over medium heat.

  2. Add the mushrooms and fry for a few minutes.

  3. Pour in the brown sauce and simmer gently for 15 to 20 minutes until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper, then serve sprinkled with chopped parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Form the main body of the dish and release moisture that mingles with the sauce as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while the mushrooms begin to brown in the pan.
Brown sauce
Supplies the liquid and savoury depth, and softens the mushrooms as it simmers.

The step that matters

Simmering in the brown sauce. Simmering gently keeps the sauce from reducing too fast or scorching, and gives the mushrooms time to become fully tender without breaking apart.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, sauce, pepper. 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.

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