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Mushroom

Mushrooms simmered in veal gravy or white broth, thickened with butter and flour or arrowroot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Mushroom

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Wash the mushrooms thoroughly and place them in a saucepan.

  2. Add the veal gravy or white broth, pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  3. Simmer until the mushrooms are tender.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the butter with flour or arrowroot to form a paste.

  2. Add the paste to the saucepan to thicken the sauce and simmer for a few more 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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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
Provide the main body and earthy flavour of the sauce as they soften and release their juices.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and combines with flour to form a paste that helps thicken the sauce.
Flour or arrowroot
Thickens the sauce by absorbing liquid and swelling when heated, giving it body.
Veal gravy or white broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying flavour and setting the overall volume.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour paste. If the paste is added without being blended smoothly, or the sauce is not simmered after, lumps can form and the starch may stay raw and taste floury. Simmering gelatinises the starch so the sauce thickens evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, veal, pepper, butter, 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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