Name: Duxelle, Oe Cooked Fine Herbs
Ingredients: 4 ounces scraped fat pork; butter; 6 ounces shallots, chopped or in 1/8 inch pieces; 1 clove garlic, crushed and chopped; ½ pound raw mushrooms, finely chopped; 1 ounce chopped parsley, washed and pressed; 1 ounce chopped truffles (optional); ½ pint demi-glaze sauce

Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Duxelle, Oe Cooked Fine Herbs

Ingredients

4 ounces scraped fat pork
butter
6 ounces shallots, chopped or in 1/8 inch pieces
1 clove garlic, crushed and chopped
½ pound raw mushrooms, finely chopped
1 ounce chopped parsley, washed and pressed
1 ounce chopped truffles (optional)
½ pint demi-glaze sauce

Directions

Melt the pork fat and butter in a saucepan.
Add the shallots and garlic, frying without coloring.
Stir in the mushrooms and reduce until all moisture evaporates.
Add the parsley and optional truffles.
If needed, thicken with demi-glaze sauce and reduce to desired consistency.

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.

Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,982 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,900 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw mushrooms: Provide the main body of the duxelle, which cooks down to a concentrated, savory paste.
Shallots: Add sweet, mild aromatic flavor as they soften in the fat without browning.
Pork fat: Carries flavor and gives the mixture richness and a smooth mouthfeel as it cooks.
Demi-glaze sauce: Thickens the mixture and adds concentrated meaty flavor and body.

The step that matters

Reduce the mushrooms until all moisture evaporates. Mushrooms release a lot of water. If it is not cooked off fully, the duxelle stays wet and steams rather than concentrating in flavor, and it can make later thickening uneven.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, butter, shallot, garlic, mushroom, parsley, truffle):

Thymefits better
Capersfits better
Marjoramfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, shallot, garlic, mushroom, parsley, truffle. 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.

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipes

Caper Sauce180 recipes

Brown Sauce141 recipes

Dutch Sauce74 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Duxelle, Oe Cooked Fine Herbs