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Escalloped Mushrooms and Peanuts

A baked dish of mushrooms and peanuts in a cream sauce, topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Escalloped Mushrooms and Peanuts

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. Drain and cut the mushrooms into small pieces.

  2. Make a rich cream sauce and pour it over the mushrooms.

Assemble

  1. Layer breadcrumbs and peanuts in a baking dish.

  2. Add the mushrooms, repeating until the dish is filled.

  3. Top the dish with breadcrumbs and nuts.

  4. Pour the remaining sauce over everything.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until brown.

  2. 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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  4. Peanut + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together84 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

Peanuts
Provide the main body and nutty flavor, and add a crunchy texture when baked.
Mushrooms
Add savory, earthy flavor and moisture that soaks into the crumbs and sauce.
Bread crumbs
Form layers that absorb the sauce and brown on top in the oven.
Cream sauce
Binds the layers together and keeps the dish moist during baking.

The step that matters

Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until brown. Baking until the top browns develops flavor through the Maillard reaction, but overbaking dries the sauce and toughens the crumbs. Check the color and serve once the top is golden.

Swap the peanut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, pepper, cream, sauce, bread):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, pepper, cream, sauce, 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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