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Ragooed Mushrooms

A dish of fresh mushrooms stewed with vinegar, herbs, onion, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Ragooed Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the mushrooms, removing the stalks.

  2. Place the mushrooms in a saucepan with vinegar, parsley, onion, chives, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil gently for 15 minutes.

  2. Before serving, stir in the yolks of two eggs.

  3. Discard the dish if the onion has turned blue or black.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Chive + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together300 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 their moisture as they cook.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the cooking liquid when stirred in.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the mushroom flavor.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and depth to the cooking liquid as it simmers.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken gently but scramble if they get too hot. Stir them in while the mixture is only warm, just before serving, so the sauce becomes smooth rather than grainy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, vinegar, parsley, chive, pepper, nutmeg, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, vinegar, parsley, chive, pepper, nutmeg, egg. 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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