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Potted Mushrooms

A preserved mushroom dish stewed in butter and spiced, then packed with clarified butter, dry paper, and melted 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 the mushrooms without wetting them, and wipe them dry after applying salt.

Cook and pot

  1. Stew the mushrooms in butter until tender, adding more spices than in mushrooms au beurre.

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

  3. Once cooled, pack the mushrooms tightly into small potting-pans.

  4. Pour lukewarm clarified butter over the mushrooms.

Store

  1. Store the packed mushrooms in a cool, dry place.

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

  3. For longer storage, cover with dry paper and 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

Small flaps or buttons of mushrooms
Form the main body of the dish, becoming soft and tender as they stew.
Butter
Cooks the mushrooms gently and adds richness and flavour to the dish.
Clarified butter
Forms a sealing layer over the packed mushrooms that helps preserve them.
Melted mutton suet
Adds a fat layer that seals the top for longer storage.

The step that matters

Wiping the mushrooms dry after salting. Mushrooms release water when salted and heated; leftover moisture dilutes the butter, dulls flavour and encourages spoilage in the potted dish.

“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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