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Baked Mushrooms

Mushrooms baked with butter, cream sauce, and lemon, served on buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 ↓

Baked Mushrooms

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 and bake

  1. Prepare mushrooms as for stewing.

  2. Place mushrooms in a baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C).

  3. Season mushrooms with coarse sea salt, black pepper, lemon juice, and chopped parsley.

  4. Cook for 15 minutes, basting with butter.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, heat cream, 2 ounces butter, 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, cayenne pepper, salt, 1 tablespoon white sauce, and 2 tablespoons lemon juice.

  2. Stir until thick, but do not let it boil.

Serve

  1. Arrange mushrooms on a dish and pour gravy over them.

  2. Serve mushrooms on slices of well-buttered toast.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Soften as they bake and release juices that concentrate into the pan flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and browns the mushrooms as they are basted.
Cream
Adds richness and body, helping the sauce turn smooth and thick.
White sauce
Acts as a thickener, giving the gravy more body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mushrooms and cuts the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir until thick, but do not let it boil.. Cream-based sauces thicken as they warm, but boiling can make them separate or turn grainy. Gentle heat and constant stirring keep the sauce smooth and glossy.

“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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