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 ↓
White Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the roux and sauce
Melt 2 oz of butter in a saucepan over medium heat.
Stir in 1.5 oz of flour with a wooden spoon until combined.
Add 1 pint of white stock and stir until it boils.
Wash and peel 6 mushrooms, then add them to the sauce.
Simmer and strain
Allow the sauce to boil again, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes with the lid half on.
Skim off any butter that rises to the surface with a spoon.
Strain the sauce through a cloth into another saucepan.
Finish and serve
Heat the strained sauce until it boils, then stir in ½ pint of cream.
Pour the sauce into a bowl and stir while it cools.
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.
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Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Mushroom + creamtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,500 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Flour + mushroomtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,253 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
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and carries flavour through the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when heated with the fat and stock.
- White stock
- Forms the liquid body of the sauce that the flour thickens.
- Mushrooms
- Add earthy flavour and a little texture to the sauce.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel.
The step that matters
Adding the stock to the roux. Stock must be added gradually while stirring, so the flour's starch disperses evenly in the liquid. Adding it all at once or stirring poorly leaves lumps that cannot be fully smoothed out later.
“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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