Why it works: Mushroom and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Fifty Lunches
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Simmer chopped mushrooms with salt and pepper for 1 hour, then strain.
Turn the liquid into a sauce by passing it through a fine sieve and adding cream.
Assemble and serve
Combine fowl pieces, fried mushrooms, macaroni, and ham in the sauce.
Heat gently and dust with grated Parmesan before serving.
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.
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Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Mushroom + creamtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,500 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Mushroom + hamtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,486 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Cream + hamtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,370 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Pepper + hamtop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,058 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
- Fresh mushrooms
- Simmered to release their flavour into the liquid that becomes the sauce.
- Cream
- Adds richness and body to the strained mushroom liquid, giving the sauce a smoother texture.
- Macaroni
- Provides the pasta body of the dish, holding its shape among the other pieces in the sauce.
The step that matters
Heating gently after combining. Cream-based sauces can separate or turn grainy if overheated, so the sauce should be warmed slowly and not brought to a hard boil once the cream and other ingredients are added.
“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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