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Potted Mushrooms

A dish of small mushrooms stewed in butter, packed in pots, and preserved 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 small mushrooms without wetting them, and wipe them dry after applying salt.

Cook and pot

  1. Stew the mushrooms in butter until tender, adding extra spices.

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

  3. Once cooled, pack the mushrooms tightly into small pots.

  4. Pour lukewarm clarified butter over the mushrooms.

Store

  1. Place the pots on a clean shelf for immediate use.

  2. Cover the pots with dry paper and melted mutton suet for longer storage.

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 mushrooms
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and absorbing the butter and spices.
Butter
Cooks the mushrooms gently and carries flavour, adding richness and moisture.
Clarified butter
Seals the surface of the packed pots, excluding air to help preserve the mushrooms.
Melted mutton suet
Forms an airtight cover over the pots for longer storage.

The step that matters

Wiping the mushrooms dry after salting. Mushrooms release water when salted, and any moisture left on them can dilute the butter and encourage spoilage during storage. Drying them well before stewing keeps the dish rich and better preserved.

“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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