Name: Mushroom Sauce
Ingredients: 1 cup canned mushrooms; 1 cup brown sauce; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley

Why it works: Mushroom and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,132 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

1 cup canned mushrooms
1 cup brown sauce
1 teaspoon chopped parsley

Directions

Make the sauce

Make the brown sauce according to your recipe.
Alternatively, make 1 cup of brown sauce using 1 cup of mushroom liquid instead of the other liquid.

Add the mushrooms

Drain, rinse, and cut the canned mushrooms into quarters or slices.
Add the mushrooms to the brown sauce.
Stir in 1 teaspoon of chopped parsley.

Serve

Serve hot over meat.

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.

Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,132 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Mushroom + saucetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,480 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,693 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).