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Mushrooms with Beefsteak

Mushrooms sautéed with salt, pepper, port wine, butter, and flour, served over a broiled beefsteak.

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 ↓

Mushrooms with Beefsteak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Clean the mushrooms by removing the skin and washing them thoroughly in several waters.

  2. Place the mushrooms in a saucepan with salt, pepper, port wine (or water), and butter.

  3. Cover the saucepan and heat it on the stove, shaking it frequently.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the flour and let it stew for about 20 minutes.

  2. Pour the mushroom mixture over a broiled beefsteak and serve hot.

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 + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Fresh mushrooms
Provide the main body of the sauce and release their own moisture as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps the mushrooms brown gently.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light, stew-like sauce.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the sauce, or is replaced by water.

The step that matters

Stewing with the flour. Flour must be cooked through while the mushrooms simmer, or it stays pasty and tastes raw. Gentle, covered heat and frequent shaking keep the sauce smooth and prevent scorching on the base of the pan.

“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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