Name: Mushrooms Under Glass
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons butter; ½ tablespoon lemon juice; ¼ teaspoon salt; a few grains pepper; ½ tablespoon finely chopped parsley; 1 circular piece of bread, ½ inch thick and 5 inches in diameter; 1/3 cup cream; 1 teaspoon Sherry or Madeira wine

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mushrooms Under Glass

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter
½ tablespoon lemon juice
¼ teaspoon salt
a few grains pepper
½ tablespoon finely chopped parsley
1 circular piece of bread, ½ inch thick and 5 inches in diameter
1/3 cup cream
1 teaspoon Sherry or Madeira wine

Directions

Cream the butter in a bowl.
Add lemon juice, salt, pepper, and parsley to the butter and mix well.
Toast the bread until golden brown.
Spread half of the butter mixture on the toast and place it buttered side down in a baking dish.
Arrange mushroom caps on the toast in a conical shape.
Dot the remaining butter mixture over the mushrooms.
Pour the cream over the mushrooms.
Cover the dish with glass and cook on the stovetop for 25 minutes.
Just before serving, add the Sherry or Madeira wine.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).