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Agaricus Campester, Scalloped

Scalloped mushrooms baked with a butter‑flour roux, broth, parsley, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Agaricus Campester, Scalloped

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add the chicken broth or white stock, stirring until smooth.

  3. Add the chopped mushroom stalks and reduce the sauce by half.

  4. Stir in the chopped parsley, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the sauce into a shallow baking dish and arrange the whole mushrooms gills up.

  2. Place a small piece of butter on each mushroom and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 minutes or until tender, then serve hot.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the roux and adds richness to the sauce and browned topping.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth sauce as a roux.
Chicken broth or white stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying the savory flavor.
Mushrooms
Supply the main earthy flavor and become tender in the baked dish.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping when baked.

The step that matters

Reducing the sauce by half. Reducing concentrates the flavor and thickens the liquid from the mushroom stalks. If the sauce is left too thin, the dish will be watery once baked.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, chicken, mushroom, pepper, bread. 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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