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Mushroom Stuffing

A savory mushroom stuffing with bread crumbs, bacon, onion, butter, egg yolks, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mushroom Stuffing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Peel and trim the mushrooms, then drop the trimmed mushrooms into cold water.

Cook

  1. In a saucepan, combine the mushrooms with a tiny bit of water, butter, lemon juice, onion, and chopped bacon.

  2. Cook gently until the mushrooms are tender.

  3. Strain the cooked mushrooms and chop finely.

Make the stuffing

  1. Mix the chopped mushrooms with the bread crumbs, egg yolks, and enough mushroom liquor to moisten without making it too wet.

  2. Season well with salt and pepper.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provides the bulk and body that holds the stuffing together.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it hold its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while the mushrooms cook.
Mushrooms
Supply the main flavour and moisture of the stuffing.
Bacon
Adds savoury, salty fat that flavours the mushrooms as they cook.

The step that matters

Moistening the mixture. Mushroom liquor must be added gradually. Too much liquid makes the bread crumbs soggy and the stuffing loose, while too little leaves it dry and crumbly.

Swap the onion

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

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

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