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Constades of Mushrooms

A mushroom constade made with onion, butter, mushrooms, anchovies, mustard, and brown sauce, served in shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Constades of Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mushroom filling

  1. Fry the chopped onion in butter until pale brown, stirring to prevent burning.

  2. Add the finely chopped mushrooms.

  3. Simmer until they are two-thirds cooked.

  4. Soak the anchovies.

  5. Pound the anchovies with the French mustard and brown sauce until well combined.

  6. Add the mixture to the mushrooms.

  7. Boil for three minutes.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill the constade cases or shells with the mixture.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Mushrooms
Provide the main bulk and earthy flavour of the filling as they cook down.
Butter
Fat that browns the onion and carries flavour into the filling.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth that boosts the umami of the mushrooms.
Brown sauce
Adds savoury, slightly tangy depth and colour to the mixture.

The step that matters

Frying the onion until pale brown. Stirring keeps the onion from scorching, since sugars in onion darken quickly and turn bitter once burnt. Pale brown gives sweetness without harshness.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, mushroom, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, mushroom, sauce. 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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