Name: Garniture a LA Chateaubriand
Ingredients: large button mushrooms; coarse sea salt; bread crumbs; sauce Madere; slices of truffles; sauce Perigueux; tournedos or fillets of beef

Why it works: Mushroom and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Garniture a LA Chateaubriand

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Remove the stems from the mushrooms and season with coarse sea salt.
Bread the mushrooms and place them on a baking sheet.

Bake and serve

Bake the mushrooms until golden brown.
Serve with sauce Madere or sauce Perigueux.
Garnish with slices of truffles on tournedos or fillets of beef.

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 + beeftop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,232 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,900 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,032 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Truffle + beeftop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together412 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-ethylphenol (must).

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

What each ingredient does

Large button mushrooms: Form the edible base that holds the bread crumbs and browns in the oven.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the oven and adds texture.
Sauce madere: Adds a rich, savoury moisture that complements the mushrooms and beef.
Slices of truffles: Add a strong, earthy aroma as a finishing garnish.

“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.