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A slice of bread fried with mushrooms and a sauce of milk, lemon, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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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.

  2. Fry the slice in good butter until light brown, slightly hollowing the inside first.

  3. Alternatively, butter the bread and grill it over gentle heat until golden.

Make the mushroom filling

  1. In a pan, cook the mushrooms with 3 to 4 ounces of butter for 10 to 15 minutes.

  2. Add mace, cayenne, and a little salt and lemon juice, cooking for 3 to 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes.

  4. For a sauce, mix in new milk or thin cream, 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.
Flour
Thickens the cooking butter and mushroom juices into a binding base for the sauce.
New milk or thin cream
Adds moisture and richness, making the mushroom mixture a creamy sauce.
Butter
Browns the bread and gives fat and flavour to the mushrooms.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes. Cooking flour briefly in fat removes its raw taste and helps it thicken smoothly. Adding liquid too soon or skipping this step can leave lumps or a pasty flavour.

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.

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