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Mushrooms on Toast

Mushrooms on Toast is sautéed mushrooms with butter, onion, parsley, lemon, and cream served over buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Henrietta Latham Dwight · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Mushrooms on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash, stem, and skin half a pound of mushrooms, then dice them.

  2. Place the diced mushrooms in a saucepan with the juice of half a lemon, a tablespoonful of butter, a slice of onion, a sprig of parsley, and one clove, tied together in a thin muslin bag.

Stew the mushrooms

  1. Set the saucepan on the fire and stew gently until nearly dry.

  2. Add water almost to cover the mushrooms, salt, and pepper to taste, and let them cook for fifteen minutes.

  3. Remove the muslin bag containing the onion, parsley, and clove.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the sauce with one well-beaten egg yolk and a small cupful of cream.

  2. Butter some slices of toast and moisten them with a little hot milk.

  3. Pour the mushrooms over the toast, garnish with parsley, and serve hot.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

304Calories
11 gProtein
23 gFat
16 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Mushroom1/2 cup sliced (35g)15
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
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 Henrietta Latham Dwight. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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

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

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (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 main body of the dish and release moisture that becomes the sauce as they stew.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor to the mushrooms as they cook.
Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce as it gently heats, giving it a smooth, coating texture.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the sauce and carrying the egg yolk's thickening.

The step that matters

Thickening with egg yolk and cream. Egg yolk thickens by setting from heat, so the sauce must stay gently warm and never boil. Stir a little hot liquid into the beaten yolk first to temper it, which prevents it from scrambling into lumps.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, onion, parsley, cream, egg, 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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