Name: Mushroom Sauce, Extempore
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons mushroom ketchup; thickened broth, gravy, or mock turtle soup (optional)

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, Extempore

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons mushroom ketchup
thickened broth, gravy, or mock turtle soup (optional)

Directions

Make the sauce

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.
Stir in the mushroom ketchup.
Add to thickened broth, gravy, or mock turtle soup if desired.

Serve

Serve as a relish with fish, poultry, or chops and steaks.

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 + ketchuptop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + ketchuptop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,784 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds richness and carries flavor, while helping the sauce feel smooth and glossy.
Mushroom ketchup: Supplies concentrated mushroom and savory umami flavor to 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.