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Mushrooms and Bacon

A toasted bread sandwich topped with fried bacon, stewed mushrooms, and parsley, finished with brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mushrooms and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Carefully pick the mushrooms and stew them for a few minutes in brown sauce or stock with butter.

Cook the bacon and toast

  1. Fry the bacon slices until crispy.

  2. Toast the bread and butter it.

Assemble and serve

  1. On each slice of toast, place a slice of bacon and top with one or two mushrooms.

  2. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and pour sauce around the toast.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main savoury filling and absorb flavour from the sauce as they stew.
Brown sauce or stock
Adds moisture and savoury depth when it stews with the mushrooms and is poured around the toast.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the mushrooms brown and taste rounded as they cook.
Bread
Forms the crisp base that holds the bacon and mushrooms.
Bacon
Contributes salty, smoky fat and crisp texture to the topping.

The step that matters

Stewing the mushrooms. Mushrooms release a lot of water as they heat. If they are crowded or cooked too long, they steam in their own liquid and turn soggy rather than tender and flavourful, so keep the pan at a gentle simmer and cook only until just tender.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

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