Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Mushroom Baskets
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pastry baskets
Make puff pastry and roll it out very thin.
Line small, suitably shaped moulds with the pastry.
Fill the centre of each mould with uncooked rice or flour to keep the shape while baking.
Cut strips of pastry, twist them, and bend them to form handles.
Bake the pastry baskets until pale brown.
Once baked, empty out the rice or flour and remove the baskets from the moulds.
Make the filling
Chop the mushrooms and onion.
Squeeze the juice and pulp of the tomato into the chopped mixture.
In a saucepan, combine the mushroom mixture with butter and thick white sauce.
Stir until the mixture is thick enough to eat with a fork.
Assemble and serve
Squeeze a few drops of lemon juice on top of the baskets.
Add the handles to the baskets.
Garnish with parsley.
Serve.
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.
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Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,037 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,065 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Mushroom + tomatotop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,719 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,633 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Puff paste
- Forms the crisp, flaky basket that holds the filling.
- Fresh or canned mushrooms
- Provide the main body and earthy flavour of the filling.
- Thick white sauce
- Binds the filling so it thickens and holds together.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavour to the filling.
- 1 large tomato
- Adds moisture and a mild acidity to the filling.
The step that matters
Stir until the mixture is thick enough to eat with a fork. Cooking the filling until it is thick keeps it from making the pastry soggy. Excess liquid from the mushrooms and tomato must evaporate, and the white sauce thickens as it heats.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, mushroom, onion, tomato, butter, sauce, parsley):
- Avocadofits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Limefits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, mushroom, onion, tomato, butter, sauce, parsley. 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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