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Mushrooms Au Gratin

Mushrooms au gratin is a baked mushroom dish with a buttery sauce, parsley, shallot, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot 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 ↓

Mushrooms Au Gratin

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Clean the mushrooms, removing the stalks and washing them.

  2. Chop the stalks and set aside.

Make the sauce

  1. In a quart saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour over medium heat for 2 minutes.

  2. Add the broth and stir until reduced by half.

  3. Drain the chopped mushroom stalks and add them to the sauce along with parsley, shallot, salt, and pepper.

  4. Cook on high heat for 8 minutes.

Fill and bake

  1. In a sauté pan, heat the oil and place the mushrooms hollow side up.

  2. Fill the mushrooms with the herb mixture and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  3. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes and serve.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  4. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Form the cups that hold the filling and soften as they cook.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavor while the flour cooks.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a sauce that clings to the stalk filling.
Broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savory flavor.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping in the oven.

The step that matters

Reducing the broth by half. Stirring the broth until reduced by half concentrates its flavor and sets the sauce's thickness before the stalks are added. Reducing too little leaves the filling watery, while reducing too far makes it salty and stiff.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, flour, shallot, pepper, bread):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, flour, shallot, pepper, bread. 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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