Why it works: Cream and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,500 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓
White Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Put well-finished white roux into a saucepan over medium heat.
Stir in best white stock until the mixture is the consistency of single cream.
Simmer with the lid partially on to allow butter to rise.
Remove the butter and place the sauce over high heat with mushroom trimmings.
Stir constantly until reduced to the consistency of double cream.
Pour in boiled cream, strain through a fine sieve, and set aside for use.
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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Cream + mushroomtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,500 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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