Name: Mushrooms Aux Fines Herbes
Ingredients: round mushrooms (puff-balls); 1 beaten egg; 2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley; 1 teaspoon finely chopped thyme; 1 teaspoon finely chopped summer savory; 1 tablespoon onion juice; butter for frying; buttered toast

Why it works: Thyme and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 214 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mushrooms Aux Fines Herbes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Gather round mushrooms in their early prime and wash them.
Peel and slice the mushrooms.
Dip the slices in beaten egg, then coat with a mixture of parsley, thyme, summer savory, and onion juice.

Fry and serve

Fry the mushrooms in hot butter a few at a time until golden.
Serve the fried mushrooms on buttered toast.

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.

Thyme + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together214 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Parsley + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together241 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mushroom + thymetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,557 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,171 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Round mushrooms: Form the main body of the dish and soak up the butter as they fry.
Beaten egg: Binds the herb coating so it adheres to the mushroom slices and browns in the pan.
Parsley: Adds fresh, green flavour to the coating.
Thyme: Adds earthy, aromatic flavour to the coating.
Summer savory: Adds a peppery, aromatic note to the coating.
Onion juice: Adds savoury, aromatic flavour to the herb coating.

The step that matters

Fry in a few batches in hot butter. Crowding the pan drops its temperature, so the mushrooms steam and release moisture instead of browning. Frying in small batches in hot butter keeps the pan hot enough for the egg coating to turn golden.

Swap the onion

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

Shallotfits better
Chivefits better
Carrotfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, egg, parsley, thyme, summer savory, butter. 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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Mushrooms Aux Fines Herbes