Skip to main content
Main

Modern Cookery

A hollowed loaf slice filled with sautéed mushrooms, butter, spices, and gravy, then fried or grilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Cut a thick slice (about 1¼ inches) from the bottom of the loaf. Hollow out the inside slightly.

  2. Fry the slice in good butter until light brown. Alternatively, butter the slice and grill it over a gentle fire until golden.

Make the mushrooms

  1. In a pan, cook the mushrooms with butter, mace, and cayenne for 10 to 15 minutes.

  2. Add flour and cook for an additional 3 to 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in the gravy or broth and cook for 2 minutes.

  4. Season with salt and lemon juice, and add lemon rind, nutmeg, and mushroom ketchup.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main filling and their earthy flavour as they cook down in butter.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread brown when fried or grilled.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the mushroom filling becomes saucy rather than watery.
Gravy or broth
Adds savoury liquid that carries the flavour of the mushrooms into the filling.
Bread
Forms the edible case that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Season with salt and lemon juice, and add lemon rind, nutmeg, and mushroom ketchup.. Acid from lemon juice and salt both brighten and balance the savoury flavour of the mushrooms and broth. Adding them after the liquid has thickened lets the cook taste and adjust before serving.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, lemon, milk, nutmeg, mushroom, ketchup):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, lemon, milk, nutmeg, mushroom, ketchup. 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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes