Name: Mushrooms En Caisse
Ingredients: 1 pound mushrooms, peeled and cut into pieces; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons chopped parsley; 2 tablespoons chopped green onions; 2 tablespoons chopped shallots; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste

Why it works: Parsley and shallot 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 ↓

Mushrooms En Caisse

Ingredients

1 pound mushrooms, peeled and cut into pieces
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
2 tablespoons chopped green onions
2 tablespoons chopped shallots
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

Directions

Prepare

Preheat your grill to a gentle heat.
Place the mushroom pieces in buttered paper cases.
Add a bit of butter, parsley, green onions, shallots, salt, and pepper.

Cook and serve

Grill the cases over the gentle fire until cooked through.
Serve the mushrooms in the paper cases.

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.

Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,982 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms: Form the main body of the dish and release moisture that cooks into the filling.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and helping the mushrooms brown lightly.
Shallots: Add a mild, sweet onion flavour that mellows as it cooks.
Green onions: Contribute a fresh, sharp onion aroma that lightens the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Grill over a gentle fire until cooked through. Mushrooms are mostly water. A gentle heat lets that moisture evaporate slowly and the flesh cook through without scorching the butter and shallots in the paper cases.

Swap the onion

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

Chivefits better
Spinachfits better
Leekfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, parsley, shallot, 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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Mushrooms En Caisse