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Mushroom-toast, or Croute Aux Champignons

A sautéed mushroom dish served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mushroom-toast, or Croute Aux Champignons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the stems from the mushrooms and peel them.

  2. Remove the fur from the mushrooms.

Make the mushroom sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Add the mushrooms, mace, and cayenne; stir well.

  3. Stew for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring often.

  4. Add the flour and shake the pan until lightly browned.

  5. Gradually pour in the gravy or beef broth.

  6. Stew for an additional couple of 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. Mushroom + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 bulk of the dish and release moisture that becomes part of the sauce.
Butter
Carries the flavour and fat that softens and browns the mushrooms.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a light sauce and helps it brown slightly.
Gravy or beef broth
Provides the savory liquid that forms the body of the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and browning it lightly. Flour needs to cook in the fat for a short time to lose its raw taste and to thicken smoothly. Adding it to liquid too early or skipping the browning can leave lumps or a pasty flavour.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

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