Name: Mushrooms White
Ingredients: button mushrooms; milk; water; coarse sea salt; double distilled vinegar; mace; white pepper; olive oil

Why it works: Mushroom and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,571 recipes. Both carry trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mushrooms White

Ingredients

Directions

Put button mushrooms into a mixture of milk and water.
Wipe them with a clean cloth, then place them in spring water and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
Boil the mushrooms for four minutes, then drain them immediately.
Cover the mushrooms between two cloths and dry them well.
Boil double distilled vinegar with mace and a little white pepper; let it cool.
Place the mushrooms in small glass bottles with wide necks and pour a teaspoon of olive oil on top.
Cork the bottles tightly and tie leather around the corks.
When ready to use, remove the oil with a cotton-tipped stick or the end of a teaspoon.

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.

Mushroom + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,571 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,695 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,297 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Mushroom + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,231 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Milk + olivetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,828 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, milk, vinegar, mace, olive):

Thymefits better
Clovefits better
Garlicfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, milk, vinegar, mace, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.