Skip to main content
Main

Ragout of Mushrooms

A savory mushroom ragout made with fresh mushrooms, butter, onion, egg yolks, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

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

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Ragout of Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Wash, skin, stem, and dice the mushrooms.

  2. Stew the stems and skins in water for 20 minutes, then strain.

Make the ragout

  1. Add the diced mushrooms to the broth with butter, onion, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cook until the mushrooms are tender.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolks quickly.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, garnished with finely minced parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh mushrooms
Provide the main body and savory flavor of the ragout.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor through the mushrooms as they cook.
Egg yolks
Thicken the warm broth into a creamy, smooth sauce when gently stirred in.
Onion
Adds a mild aromatic background flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat. If the mixture is too hot or stirred slowly, the yolks can scramble into lumps. Removing from heat first and stirring quickly spreads the yolk evenly for a smooth result.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, pepper, egg, parsley. 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.

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes