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Potted Mushrooms

Mushrooms stewed in butter, pressed into small pots, covered with clarified butter, dry paper, and melted mutton suet for storage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Potted Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare small flaps or buttons of mushrooms without wetting them, and wipe them dry after applying salt.

Cook and drain

  1. Stew the mushrooms in butter until tender, adding a little extra spice.

  2. Drain the mushrooms in a dish raised a few inches to remove excess butter.

Pot and store

  1. Once cooled, press the mushrooms tightly into small pots.

  2. Pour lukewarm clarified butter over the mushrooms and store in a cool, dry place.

  3. For immediate use, place them on a clean shelf; for longer storage, cover with dry paper and melted mutton suet.

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

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

  2. Mushroom + muttontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together685 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Butter + muttontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 carry the flavour of the spices and butter.
Butter
Cooks the mushrooms gently and adds richness and moisture to the finished dish.
Clarified butter
Forms a sealed top layer that helps keep the potted mushrooms from spoiling in storage.

The step that matters

Wipe the mushrooms dry after salting. Mushrooms release water when salted, and any moisture left on them can dilute the butter and encourage spoilage during storage.

“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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