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Faggot of Duxelles

A mixture of finely minced mushrooms, parsley, shallots, and bacon, seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Faggot of Duxelles

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a skillet, fry the grated bacon for 2 minutes.

  2. Add the minced mushrooms, parsley, and shallots.

  3. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  4. Season with black pepper and salt 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 + 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. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 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
Release moisture as they cook, which then evaporates to leave a concentrated, savory paste.
Shallots
Add mild sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften in the pan.
Bacon
Renders fat into the skillet that cooks the vegetables and adds smoky, salty flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until the moisture evaporates. Mushrooms hold a lot of water. If the mixture is cooked too briefly, it stays wet and steams rather than browning, leaving a soggy, diluted result. Cooking with stirring drives off the water and concentrates the flavor.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Carrotfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, 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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