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Fricasse of Mushrooms

A sautéed mushroom dish thickened with flour and milk, finished with egg yolks and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricasse of Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the mushrooms

  1. Wash the mushrooms and place them in a chafing dish.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and black pepper, cover, and cook slowly for 5 minutes.

Thicken and serve

  1. Moisten the flour in the milk, then strain this mixture into the mushrooms.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and chopped parsley.

  4. Serve immediately.

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

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

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

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

  3. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Make up the bulk of the dish and release moisture as they cook slowly.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the sauce becomes body-rich and clings to the mushrooms.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg yolks. Once the sauce is boiling, egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they are added too hot or cooked too long. Adding them off the heat or at a gentle heat keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Turmericfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, pepper, flour, milk, egg. 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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