Skip to main content
Main

Coquilles De Champignons, or Mushrooms in Shells

A savory mushroom mixture baked in shells with butter, flour, stock, egg yolks, lemon, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Coquilles De Champignons, or Mushrooms in Shells

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Cut large mushrooms into small pieces or dice.

  2. Boil mushrooms in water for 6-8 minutes, then transfer to cold water to whiten.

  3. Wipe mushrooms dry and sauté in a saucepan with a little butter until lightly browned.

Make the sauce

  1. Shake in a little flour and chopped parsley, then pour in 1 cup of rich stock.

  2. Let the mixture simmer for 15 minutes.

  3. Just before serving, beat 1-2 egg yolks and stir in with 1 teaspoon of lemon juice.

Fill and brown

  1. Fill each shell with the mixture, sprinkle with cracker crumbs, and brown in a very hot oven (400°F) for a few minutes.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Large mushrooms
Form the bulk of the filling, giving the dish its main texture and savory flavor.
Butter
Browns the mushrooms and adds rich, nutty flavor to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a light sauce that holds the filling together.
Rich stock
Provides the liquid base of the sauce and savory depth to the filling.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce gently when stirred in at the end.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns in the hot oven.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated, so they should be stirred in off the heat just before serving. If the mixture boils after they go in, the yolks can scramble and turn grainy.

“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

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes