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Mushrooms Au Gratin

Mushrooms au gratin is a baked dish of mushrooms, force-meat, breadcrumbs, cream, butter, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Mushrooms Au Gratin

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Prepare the mushrooms as you would for Mushroom Cups.

  2. Fill a pudding dish with the filled mushrooms.

Assemble

  1. Fill the gaps with force-meat and sprinkle fine breadcrumbs on top.

  2. Pour in ¼ cup of cream and place small bits of butter on the surface.

  3. Dust with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake covered in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 minutes until lightly browned.

  2. Serve in the bake dish.

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

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + meattop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,423 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Mushroom + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,500 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Form the main body of the dish and release moisture that bastes the filling as it bakes.
Force-meat
Fills the gaps between mushrooms and adds a rich, savoury, binding texture.
Fine breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns in the oven.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the dish stay tender as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the top brown.

The step that matters

Bake covered until lightly browned. Baking covered first traps steam so the mushrooms cook through and the filling stays moist, while the top only browns once the cover is off or the heat has done its work. Watching the colour keeps the topping golden rather than dry or burnt.

“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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