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Potted Mushrooms

A preserved mushroom dish stewed in butter and packed in small pots, then covered with clarified butter, dry paper, and mutton suet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Potted Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare small mushrooms without wetting them and wipe them clean after applying salt.

Make the potted mushrooms

  1. Stew the mushrooms in butter until tender, adding a little extra spice.

  2. Transfer the mushrooms to a large dish, allowing them to drain from the butter.

  3. Once cooled, pack the mushrooms tightly into small pots.

  4. Pour lukewarm clarified butter over the mushrooms to cover them.

Store

  1. Store in a cool, dry place.

  2. For immediate use, place them on a clean shelf.

  3. For longer storage, cover with dry paper and then with melted mutton suet.

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. Mushroom + muttontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together685 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Butter + muttontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Form the main body of the dish and soften into a tender, spreadable texture when stewed.
Butter
Cooks the mushrooms gently and adds richness and a rounded, savoury flavour.
Clarified butter
Forms a sealing layer over the mushrooms that helps keep air out during storage.

The step that matters

Stewing the mushrooms until tender. Mushrooms release water as they cook, and cooking them gently in butter until tender concentrates their flavour and drives off moisture. Leftover moisture left in the pots can spoil the preserve, so draining them well before potting matters.

“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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