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Mushrooms, Grilled

Grilled mushrooms seasoned with pepper, sea salt, and oil or melted butter, served with melted butter and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mushrooms, Grilled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the stalks, peel, and lightly score the underside of the mushrooms.

  2. Season the mushrooms with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Marinate them in oil or melted butter for 40 minutes.

Grill and serve

  1. Grill the mushrooms on a gridiron over a slow, even fire for about 12 minutes, turning them to cook both sides.

  2. Serve with melted butter on top and a squeeze of lemon juice.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Large mushrooms
Act as the main body of the dish, softening and browning as they cook over the fire.
Oil or melted butter
Coats the mushrooms to add moisture and help them brown on the grill.
Butter for serving
Adds richness and a glossy finish to the cooked mushrooms.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury flavour of the mushrooms.

The step that matters

Grilling over a slow, even fire. Mushrooms hold a lot of water, so a fire that is too hot can scorch the outside before the interior softens. A slow, even heat cooks them through while allowing browning, and turning them ensures both sides cook evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Mangofits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, pepper, 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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