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Baked Mushrooms

Mushrooms stuffed with sautéed shallot, onion, herbs, and breadcrumbs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Baked Mushrooms

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Remove the gills from the mushrooms and sprinkle them lightly with salt.

  3. In a pan, heat oil or butter and sauté shallot and onion until soft.

  4. Add mushroom trimmings and small pieces of mushrooms; cook until moisture evaporates.

  5. Season with salt, pepper, and parsley; cook for 2 minutes.

  6. Stir in sweet herbs, breadcrumbs, and brown or tomato sauce.

  7. Remove from heat and mix in beaten egg yolks to thicken.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the mushrooms with the mixture, smooth the tops, and dust with breadcrumbs.

  2. Place on a baking sheet, baste with oil or melted butter, and bake for 30 minutes.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Flat mushrooms
Form the edible cup that holds the filling and softens as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and thicken it when mixed in off the heat.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture from the filling and brown on top to form a crust.
Shallot and onion
Add savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften in the fat.

The step that matters

Mixing in the egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated, but if the filling is too hot when they go in, they can scramble into lumps. Removing the pan from the heat first lets them set the mixture smoothly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, shallot, onion, butter, pepper, parsley, 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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