Name: Mushrooms À LA Bordelaise
Ingredients: 1 pound mushrooms; ¼ cup oil or oiled butter; 2 tablespoons chopped parsley; 2 cloves garlic, minced; 2 egg yolks

Why it works: Parsley and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,308 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mushrooms À LA Bordelaise

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the stems from the mushrooms and clean them.
In a pan, heat the oil or oiled butter.
Add the chopped parsley and minced garlic, and sauté for a few minutes.
Stir in the egg yolks until the sauce thickens.
Serve the grilled mushrooms topped with the sauce.

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 + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Mushroom + garlictop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,700 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,768 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,368 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

Swap the clove

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

Thymefits better
Capersfits better
Marjoramfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, parsley, garlic, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.