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Mushrooms Au Gratin

A baked dish of hollowed mushrooms filled with sautéed mushroom stems, onion, herbs, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mushrooms Au Gratin

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 the mushrooms

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Carefully peel the mushrooms.

  3. Scoop out the insides to make them hollow.

  4. Cut the stalks close to the cups.

  5. Peel the stalks.

  6. Chop the stalks with the scooped-out mushroom parts.

Make the filling

  1. Sauté the chopped mixture with butter for 1 minute.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and lemon peel or juice.

  3. Stir in enough bread crumbs to form a moist paste.

  4. Fill the mushroom cups with the mixture.

  5. Smooth the tops into a dome shape.

Bake and serve

  1. Dredge with fine bread crumbs.

  2. Place in a baking tin with a little oil or butter.

  3. Bake until the mushrooms are cooked through, being careful not to break them.

  4. Remove with a slice.

  5. Drain excess fat.

  6. Serve on a hot dish garnished with fried parsley.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Form the hollow cups that hold the filling and cook through in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the chopped filling and form a paste, and brown on the crust.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour into the sautéed filling and the baking tin.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the butter.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through without breaking the mushrooms. Mushrooms release water as they heat, and overcooking collapses their walls. Gentle handling and baking only until tender keeps the cups intact and the filling moist.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, walnut, parsley, thyme, butter, pepper, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, walnut, parsley, thyme, butter, pepper, lemon. 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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