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Stewed Mushrooms

A dish of sautéed mushrooms simmered with nut butter and Marmite, seasoned with salt and pepper, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Stewed Mushrooms

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Wipe and peel the mushrooms, then remove the stalks.

  2. Fry the mushrooms with the nut butter over high heat for a few minutes.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then add the dissolved MARMITE.

  4. Simmer gently for 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, garnished with chopped parsley.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh mushrooms
Form the main body of the dish and release moisture that forms the stewing liquid.
Nut butter
Adds fat for frying, helping the mushrooms brown and carry flavour.
Marmite
Adds deep savoury, umami flavour to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Frying over high heat. Mushrooms are mostly water. Frying over high heat drives off moisture so they brown rather than steam, building flavour before the liquid is added.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Marjoramfits less well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, pepper. 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.

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