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Mushroom Sandwiches

A sandwich with a mushroom and tomato mixture spread between buttered bread slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mushroom Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Chop the onion and mushrooms finely.

  2. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and simmer gently until tender.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve and let it cool on a plate.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the mixture between thin slices of buttered bread.

  2. Cut into neat squares and serve.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Mushroom + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 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
Provides the main savoury filling once chopped and cooked soft.
Milk
Liquid that simmers with the vegetables into a soft, creamy mixture.
Bread crumbs
Absorbs liquid and thickens the mixture so it holds together as a spread.
Tomatoes
Adds acidity and moisture to the filling.
Onion
Adds savoury flavour as it softens in the simmering mixture.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until tender. Milk can scorch or separate when boiled hard, and vegetables cook unevenly at high heat. Gentle simmering keeps the mixture smooth and evenly soft, which matters because it is sieved afterwards.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, tomato, bread, milk, lemon, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, tomato, bread, milk, lemon, 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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