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Savoury Dishes

Cup mushrooms filled with a seasoned mixture of breadcrumbs, onion and herbs, topped with crumbs and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Payne, A. G. (Arthur Gay), 1840-1894 · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Savoury Dishes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash, dry and peel the mushrooms.

  2. For mushrooms au gratin, pick mushrooms of the same size, the cups being about two inches across.

  3. Peel the mushrooms carefully without breaking them.

  4. Cut out the stalks close down with a spoon.

  5. Scoop out the inside of each cup to make it hollow.

Make the filling

  1. Peel the stalks and chop them with the scooped mushroom, a piece of onion as big as the top of the thumb down to the first joint, and a brimming teaspoonful of chopped parsley.

  2. Add a saltspoonful of dried thyme, or half that quantity of fresh thyme.

  3. Fry all this in a frying pan in a little butter.

  4. Add enough dried breadcrumbs, rubbed through a wire sieve, to make a moist paste.

  5. Season the mixture with a little pepper, salt and lemon juice.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill each cup with the mixture so the top is as convex as the cup.

  2. Shake fine breadcrumbs over the top to give a golden-brown colour.

  3. Pour a little oil into a baking tin and place the mushrooms in it.

  4. Bake gently in the oven until the cup part is soft and tender, taking care they do not break.

  5. Lift the mushrooms out carefully with an egg slice.

  6. Place them on a dish and arrange crisp fried parsley around the edge.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

55Calories
2 gProtein
0 gFat
13 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Thyme1 tsp dried (1.4g)4
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Payne, A. G. (Arthur Gay), 1840-1894. 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. See the original page.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms (in the method)
Hollow caps hold the filling and become tender and soft as they bake.
Dried breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture from the filling to form a moist paste that holds its shape.
Fine breadcrumbs (in the method)
Browning on the surface gives the golden-brown colour.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and flavour to the filling once fried in butter.

The step that matters

Bake gently until the cup part is soft and tender. Mushroom caps are delicate and lose structure if overcooked or heated too hard, so gentle heat softens them while keeping them whole.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against thyme, parsley, pepper. 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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