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Mushroom Egg

A creamy mushroom and egg mixture served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mushroom Egg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Clean and pare the mushrooms, removing the stems.

  2. Mince the mushrooms and mix gently with milk, pepper, salt, parsley, and onion until the juice runs out.

Make the egg mixture

  1. Strain off the liquid and add the yolks of five eggs and the whites of three to every pint of liquid.

  2. Beat well and heat quickly while stirring.

  3. Pour the mixture over toast.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the liquid and enrich it as they heat, giving a creamy, set texture.
Egg whites
Add structure and lightness as they set when heated.
Mushrooms
Supply the main flavour and release juice that forms the base of the mixture.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the mixture.
Toast
Serves as a base that holds the warm egg mixture.

The step that matters

Heat quickly while stirring. Eggs set when heated, so stirring constantly over quick heat keeps the mixture smooth and creamy rather than letting it curdle into lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, milk, pepper, parsley, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, milk, pepper, parsley, egg. 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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