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Mushroom Tartlets

Mushroom tartlets are baked pastry shells filled with sautéed mushrooms, onion, and vermicelli.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Mushroom Tartlets

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. Peel, wash, and cut mushrooms into small pieces. Finely chop the onion.

  2. Melt butter in a frying pan, then fry mushrooms and onion together, adding pepper and salt to taste.

  3. Stir in vermicelli and cook until tender in the mushroom juice.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line tartlet tins with wholemeal crust.

  2. Fill tins with mushroom mixture, cover with more crust, and press edges together.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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

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

  2. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main filling bulk and savoury flavour once they soften and release their juice.
Butter
Carries the frying and adds richness and browning to the mushrooms and onion.
Vermicelli
Cooks in the mushroom juice to thicken and bind the filling.
Allinson wholemeal crust
Forms the tartlet case and top that holds the filling while baking.

The step that matters

Cooking the mushrooms until tender in their juice. Mushrooms release a lot of water, and cooking them long enough lets that liquid evaporate and concentrate the flavour. If the filling stays wet, the pastry can turn soggy and the filling can run when baked.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, pepper. 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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