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 ↓
Broiled Mushrooms
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Place mushrooms on a plate and sprinkle with a little coarse sea salt.
Let them sit for a while, preferably overnight for breakfast.
Cook and serve
Broil the mushrooms lightly on both sides.
Heat the juice that has collected on the plate with a little butter and pepper.
Pour the heated juice over the mushrooms and serve hot.
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.
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Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 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
- Mushrooms
- Main ingredient; they release their juice when salted and provide the body of the dish.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the mushrooms, creating the collected juice used for the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness to the heated juice, giving it a silkier, rounder flavour.
The step that matters
Broil the mushrooms lightly on both sides. Mushrooms are mostly water, so high heat must brown the surface quickly. Overcooking forces out more moisture and leaves them rubbery and soggy rather than tender and lightly browned.
“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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