Name: Italian Sauce
Ingredients: 8 shallots, peeled, scalded, and chopped; ½ cup mushrooms, cleaned and finely chopped; 1 cup béchamel sauce

Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Italian Sauce

Ingredients

8 shallots, peeled, scalded, and chopped
½ cup mushrooms, cleaned and finely chopped
1 cup béchamel sauce

Directions

In a pan, sweat the chopped shallots and mushrooms together over low heat until softened.
Add the béchamel sauce and stir to combine.

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.

Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,982 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Shallot + saucetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,303 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Mushroom + saucetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,480 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Shallots: Soften into a sweet, aromatic base that gives the sauce its flavour.
Mushrooms: Add savoury depth and moisture that carries flavour through the sauce.
Béchamel sauce: Provides the creamy body that binds the sauce together.

“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.