Name: Baked Mushrooms
Ingredients: larger mushrooms; coarse sea salt; black pepper; butter

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 ↓

Baked Mushrooms

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

larger mushrooms
coarse sea salt
black pepper
butter

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Peel the mushrooms and cut the stalks close to the top.
Place them upside down in an earthen or porcelain dish.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Add a tiny piece of butter to each mushroom.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for twenty minutes, basting two or three times with melted butter.
Serve hot in the baking dish.

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.

Mushroom + buttertop 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).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).