Name: Duxelle, Ok Cooked Pine Hekbs
Ingredients: 4 ounces scraped fat pork; 4 ounces butter; 6 ounces shallots, chopped; 1 clove garlic, crushed and chopped; ½ pound raw mushrooms, finely chopped; 1 ounce chopped parsley, washed and pressed; ½ pint demi-glaze sauce (optional); 1 ounce chopped truffles (optional)

Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Duxelle, Ok Cooked Pine Hekbs

Ingredients

4 ounces scraped fat pork
4 ounces butter
6 ounces shallots, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed and chopped
½ pound raw mushrooms, finely chopped
1 ounce chopped parsley, washed and pressed
½ pint demi-glaze sauce (optional)
1 ounce chopped truffles (optional)

Directions

Melt the fat pork and butter in a saucepan.
Add the chopped shallots and crushed garlic; fry without coloring.
Stir in the finely chopped mushrooms and reduce until moisture evaporates.
Add the chopped parsley and optional truffles.
If needed, thicken with demi-glaze sauce and reduce to desired consistency.

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.

Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,982 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,677 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms: Provide the bulk of the mixture; their moisture must cook off to leave a concentrated paste.
Butter: Carries flavor and adds richness while the shallots and mushrooms cook.
Shallots: Add a mild sweetness and aromatic base when softened without browning.
Fat pork: Adds savory richness and fat that helps the mushrooms cook down and brown gently.

The step that matters

Reduce the mushrooms until the moisture evaporates. Mushrooms release a lot of water. If it is not cooked off, the mixture stays wet and steams instead of concentrating, so it becomes soggy and loses flavor.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, butter, shallot, garlic, mushroom, parsley, sauce):

Capersfits better
Thymefits better
Tarragonfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, shallot, garlic, mushroom, parsley, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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Duxelle, Ok Cooked Pine Hekbs