Name: Broiled Mushrooms
Ingredients: large flat mushrooms; coarse sea salt; black pepper; melted butter

Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Broiled Mushrooms

Ingredients

large flat mushrooms
coarse sea salt
black pepper
melted butter

Directions

Remove the outer skin from the mushrooms without breaking them.
Grease a double-wire broiler to prevent sticking and lay the mushrooms on it.
Broil the mushrooms over the fire, first on one side and then the other for a few minutes.
When they start to steam, sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Serve on a very hot dish and pour melted butter liberally over them.
For a variation, serve on buttered 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.

Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).