Why it works: Mushroom and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Mushrooms with Bacon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Clean the mushrooms thoroughly.
Cook
Fry the bacon in a skillet until nearly done.
Add the mushrooms to the skillet and fry slowly until cooked.
Season with salt and pepper before serving.
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.
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Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 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
- Form the main body of the dish and release moisture that carries flavor as they cook.
- Streaky bacon
- Renders fat into the skillet for frying and adds savory, salty flavor, with browned edges adding aroma.
The step that matters
Fry the mushrooms slowly. Mushrooms are mostly water. Cooking them gently lets that moisture evaporate and the surfaces brown, while high heat can leave them soggy or steaming and pale.
“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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