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Mushrooms Au Gratin

Mushrooms au gratin is a baked dish of button mushrooms filled with herbs, topped with breadcrumbs and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Remove the gills from the mushrooms, ensuring they are not fully opened.

  3. In a bowl, mix chopped chives, parsley, pepper, and salt.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the mushroom cups with the mixture and top with bread crumbs.

  2. Grease a sauté pan with butter.

  3. Place the mushrooms inside the pan.

  4. Bake in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes until cooked.

Brown and serve

  1. Use a salamander to brown the tops just before serving.

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

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

  2. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mushroom + chivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Button mushrooms
Act as the cups that hold the herb filling while they cook.
Bread crumbs
Form a topping that browns in the oven and adds a crisp, golden surface.
Butter
Greases the pan so the mushrooms do not stick and adds richness.
Chives and parsley
Add fresh, aromatic flavour that brightens the rich, savoury filling.

The step that matters

Use a salamander to brown the tops just before serving. Browning relies on the Maillard reaction, which needs high, direct heat at the surface. Browning too long can dry the crumbs or overcook the mushrooms, so timing matters.

Swap the chive

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Chivethe original

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