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 and Bacon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mushrooms
Cut off the stalks, wash, and peel the mushrooms.
Broil the mushrooms for 2 minutes on each side.
Assemble and serve
Lay the mushrooms on buttered toast.
Set the platter on a pan of hot water on the stove.
Broil thin slices of bacon beside the mushrooms.
Let the bacon fat drip onto the mushrooms and toast.
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.
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Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mushrooms
- Provide the main savory body and soften and brown under the broiler.
- Fat breakfast bacon
- Adds savory flavor and fat that drips onto the mushrooms and toast.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavor to the toast beneath the mushrooms.
The step that matters
Broiling the mushrooms on each side. Mushrooms hold a lot of water. Broiling them until they brown concentrates their flavor, while leaving them too long dries them out and makes them rubbery.
“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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