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Tomatoes with Mushrooms

A tomato and mushroom sauce served hot with biscuits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomatoes with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Boil the tomatoes in slightly salted water.

  2. Strain off the water.

  3. Rub the tomatoes through a sieve.

  4. Soak the biscuits in tepid water or milk.

  5. Pass the biscuits through a sieve.

  6. Mix the biscuits with the tomatoes in a saucepan.

  7. Add half the butter.

  8. Add the Bovril.

  9. Add the sugar.

  10. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  11. Stir until the mixture boils.

  12. Add the cream.

  13. Keep the sauce hot.

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Wash, clean, and dry the mushrooms.

  2. Fry the mushrooms in the remaining butter.

  3. Season the mushrooms with salt and pepper.

  4. Sprinkle the mushrooms with chopped parsley.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the tomato puree in a round dish.

  2. Surround the puree with the fried mushrooms.

  3. Sprinkle the remaining parsley over the dish.

  4. 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

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

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the main body of the sauce and provide its acidity and flavour.
Cracknel biscuits
Soaked and sieved, they thicken the tomato purée into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and is used to fry the mushrooms for browning.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, milder texture to the finished sauce.
Mushrooms
Fried in butter, they brown and add savoury, earthy flavour around the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir until the mixture boils. Once the biscuit-thickened tomato mixture reaches a boil it thickens and cooks through. Cream should be added after this, since prolonged boiling can cause dairy to separate.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, biscuit, parsley, butter, sugar, mushroom, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, biscuit, parsley, butter, sugar, mushroom, 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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