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Mushroom Gravy

A creamy mushroom gravy made with onions, butter, mushrooms, cream, parsley, flour, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom 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 ↓

Mushroom Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a saucepan and cook the chopped onion until golden yellow.

  2. Add the mushroom peels and cream to the saucepan.

  3. Fry the chopped parsley in a separate pan, then add it to the mixture.

  4. Thicken the gravy with flour and season with coarse sea salt to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve the mushroom gravy over mashed potatoes.

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

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

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

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Softens and turns golden, adding sweetness and savory depth to the gravy base.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries the onion's flavor into the gravy.
Mushroom peels
Contribute earthy mushroom aroma and flavor to the cream base.
Cream
Provides fat and body, giving the gravy a smooth, rich texture.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks, giving it body and a coating consistency.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with flour. Flour must be cooked into the liquid so starch granules swell and thicken it smoothly; adding it raw or in clumps leaves lumps and a pasty taste.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, mushroom, cream, flour. 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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