Name: Mushroom Croutes
Ingredients: Bread rounds, ¾ inch thick; Butter; Mushrooms; Brown sauce

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Mushroom Croutes

Ingredients

Bread rounds, ¾ inch thick
Butter
Mushrooms
Brown sauce

Directions

Cut bread into rounds about ¾ inch thick and scoop out the center.
Fry the bread rounds until golden brown, then drain and keep warm.
Place mushrooms on a greased baking sheet, adding a piece of butter to each.
Bake the mushrooms in the oven until cooked.
Mince one or two mushrooms and cook them in a pan with a small amount of brown sauce.
Spoon the cooked mixture onto each bread round and top with a whole mushroom.
Serve very hot.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Mushroom + saucetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,480 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce 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

Brown Bread461 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

Mushroom Soup60 recipes

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Mushroom Croutes