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Stuffed Mushrooms, Italian Style

Mushrooms filled with a savory mixture of shallots, mushrooms, breadcrumbs, parsley, cream sauce, and egg yolks, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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, Italian Style

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut off the stems of the mushrooms close to the top, wash them in acidulated water, and drain on a napkin.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and lightly fry the shallots.

  3. Add the chopped mushrooms, cover, and cook until the moisture is reduced.

  4. Stir in the bread crumbs, season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, add the parsley and cream sauce, mix well, and remove from heat.

  5. Allow the mixture to cool, then stir in the egg yolks.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the mushrooms with the mixture, sprinkle with bread crumbs, and arrange in a buttered baking pan.

  2. Drizzle a few drops of sweet oil on each mushroom.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden, and serve with brown Italian 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Their caps hold the filling, and their moisture is reduced first so the filling does not become watery.
Butter
Fat that softens the shallots and chopped mushrooms and carries flavour into the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling body so it holds its shape when stuffed.
Egg yolks
Bind the cooled filling and help it set and brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Cool the filling before adding the egg yolks. Hot filling would scramble or partly cook the yolks, so they would not blend smoothly or bind the mixture well.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, shallot, butter, bread, pepper, parsley, cream. 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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