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Mushrooms Au Gratin

A baked dish of mushrooms, force-meat, bread crumbs, cream, butter, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mushrooms Au Gratin

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Prepare the mushrooms as you would for Mushroom Cups.

  2. Fill a pudding dish with the mushrooms and fill the gaps with force-meat.

Top and bake

  1. Sprinkle fine bread crumbs over the top.

  2. Pour in ¼ cup of cream.

  3. Dot the surface with small pieces of butter and dust with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Cover and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 minutes.

  5. Brown lightly and serve in the bake dish.

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. Bread + buttertop 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Form the main body of the dish and release moisture that softens during baking.
Force-meat
Fills the gaps between mushrooms, adding a rich, binding texture.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a top layer that crisps and browns in the oven.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the filling turn silky as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches flavour and encourages gentle browning on top.

The step that matters

Brown lightly after covering. Covering traps steam so the mushrooms cook through gently; the uncovered browning step must be watched so the crumbs colour without drying or burning the cream-rich filling.

“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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