Name: Mushrooms a LA Bordelaise
Ingredients: big, firm, fresh mushrooms; fine oil; pepper; coarse sea salt; olive oil; finely chopped onion; parsley; vinegar or lemon juice

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Mushrooms a LA Bordelaise

Ingredients

Directions

Peel, wash, and drain the mushrooms.
Make one or two slits on the top side of the mushrooms.
Soak the mushrooms in fine oil for 1.5 hours; season with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Broil the mushrooms, turning when half cooked to ensure even cooking.
Warm the olive oil used for soaking and season with finely chopped onion and parsley.
Dish the mushrooms, sprinkle with a few drops of vinegar or lemon juice, and pour the hot oil over them.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,649 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Mushroom + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,571 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,779 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, pepper, olive, parsley, vinegar):

Capsicumfits better
Shallotfits better
Tomatofits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, pepper, olive, parsley, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.