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Stuffed Mushrooms, with Fine Herbs

Stuffed mushrooms filled with a mixture of shallots, mushroom stems, Allemande sauce, parsley, and served with Madeira wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stuffed Mushrooms, with Fine Herbs

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cut off the stems of the mushrooms close to the top, wash and drain them.

  3. Lightly fry the shallots in a saucepan. Add the chopped mushroom stems and cook slowly until moisture is nearly reduced.

  4. Stir in the Allemande sauce and chopped parsley, then let the mixture cool.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the mushrooms with the cooled mixture.

  2. Place the stuffed mushrooms in a buttered pan, sprinkle with bread crumbs, and drizzle with sweet oil.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until golden and serve with Madeira wine sauce.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 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

Mushrooms
Hold the filling and cook down to a moist, tender base.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet aromatic base to the filling when fried gently.
Allemande sauce
Binds the chopped mushroom stems into a cohesive, creamy filling.
Fresh bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping during baking.

The step that matters

Cooking down the mushroom stems. Mushrooms release a lot of water. If the stems are not cooked until the moisture is nearly gone, the filling stays wet, dilutes the sauce, and makes the stuffed caps soggy in the oven.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, shallot, sauce, butter, bread, madeira wine):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, shallot, sauce, butter, bread, madeira wine. 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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