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Essence of Mushrooms

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Essence of Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash and peel the mushrooms, then cut them into small pieces.

  2. Layer a quarter-inch thick of the minced mushrooms in a new earthenware jar, sprinkling with fine salt.

  3. Press down with a light weight, using a reversed saucer if possible.

  4. Pound the mixture together the next day and let it stand for 48 hours, stirring every 6 hours until it becomes a puree.

  5. Add black pepper and mustard seed, then boil in a bain-marie for 3 hours.

  6. Run the mixture through a fine wire sieve and decant the clear part carefully.

  7. Add a spoonful of spirit before corking and sealing the jar tightly.

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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mushroom + mustardtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together881 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Mustard + spirittop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mushroom + spirittop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, pepper, spirit. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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