Name: Mushroom Sauce
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon drippings from fillet; 1 cup stock or water; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 cup canned mushrooms; 2 tablespoons flour; 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce; Salt and pepper to taste

Why it works: Butter and mushroom 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 ↓

Mushroom Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

In a saucepan, combine the drippings, stock or water, and butter to make a brown sauce.
Strain the sauce and add the canned mushrooms.
Simmer for 5 minutes.
Stir in Worcestershire sauce and season with salt and pepper to taste.

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.

Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,078 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Drippings: Adds savory meat flavor and fat to the base of the brown sauce.
Stock or water: Provides the liquid that forms the body of the sauce.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Canned mushrooms: Contribute earthy flavor and soft, meaty texture to the sauce.
Worcestershire sauce: Adds tangy, savory depth that rounds out the sauce.

“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.