Skip to main content
Main

Mushrooms, with Cream

A sautéed mushroom dish finished with cream and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and fennel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 625 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Mushrooms, with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the Cepes and cut them in halves.

  2. In a small flat saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

Cook the mushrooms

  1. Add the Cepes and toss them until the moisture is reduced.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then add the parsley and fennel.

  3. Moisten with cream and cook slowly for 15 minutes.

  4. Remove the parsley and fennel from the pan.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the chopped fennel or parsley with butter until melted, then pour over the Cepes and serve.

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. Parsley + fenneltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + fenneltop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,216 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cepes (mushrooms)
Provides the main bulk and earthy flavor, and releases moisture that must cook off first.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carries flavor, and gently browns the mushrooms.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and richness, and thickens into a creamy sauce as it simmers.
Parsley and fennel
Add fresh herbal aroma and a bright finish to the rich, earthy mushrooms.

The step that matters

Reduce the mushroom moisture before adding the cream. If the Cepes are still wet when the cream goes in, the sauce will thin and the mushrooms will steam instead of browning. Cooking off the liquid first concentrates the flavor and lets the cream thicken properly.

Swap the fennel

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Fennelthe original

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