Skip to main content
Main

To Keep Mushrooms

A method of preserving button mushrooms by salting, drying, and storing them in suet, later reheated in milk and egg yolk stew.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Keep Mushrooms

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Wash the mushrooms and place them stalk side up on a sieve.

  2. Sprinkle with salt to draw out moisture.

  3. Drain the mushrooms properly.

  4. Place the mushrooms in a pot in a cool oven for 1 hour.

  5. Remove the mushrooms from the oven. Let them cool.

  6. Drain them.

Preserve in the jar

  1. Boil the liquid with 1-2 blades of mace until reduced by half.

  2. Transfer the mushrooms to a clean, dry jar.

  3. Pour the cooled liquid over the mushrooms.

  4. Cover the jar with rendered suet.

  5. Seal the jar with a bladder.

  6. Store the jar in a dry place for winter.

Make the stew and serve

  1. Pour boiling milk over the mushrooms. Let the mixture sit for 1 hour.

  2. Stew the mushrooms in the milk for 15 minutes.

  3. Thicken the stew with flour and butter. Avoid adding oil.

  4. Beat the egg yolks with a little cream. Stir the mixture into the stew without boiling.

  5. Serve with untoasted sippets around the dish.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Large button mushrooms
Form the main body of the dish and absorb the flavour of the liquid.
Flour
Thickens the milk stew so it coats the mushrooms.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the thickened stew.
2 egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the stew when stirred in without boiling.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the egg yolk mixture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the stew, adding softness and mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolks into the stew without boiling. Egg yolks begin to set at moderate heat and will curdle or scramble if the mixture boils. Stirring them in off the boil keeps the stew smooth and thick.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, milk, flour, butter, egg, cream, bread):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, milk, flour, butter, egg, cream, bread. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipes