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Mushroom Forcemeat, Vegetarian

A vegetarian forcemeat made from mushrooms, lemon, olive oil, bread crumbs, mushroom ketchup, spices, and tapioca.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mushroom Forcemeat, Vegetarian

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash the mushrooms, chop them, and place them in a heated saucepan with the oil.

  2. Stir until the mushrooms begin to soften.

  3. Add the mushroom ketchup, nutmeg, cayenne, white pepper, and salt.

  4. Mix in the soaked bread crumbs.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in the cooked tapioca.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,571 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Button mushrooms
Provide the main body and savoury flavour of the forcemeat as they soften and release moisture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the mixture body so it holds together as a stuffing.
Tapioca
Thickens the mixture as its starch swells when cooked, adding a smoother, binding texture.
Olive oil
Carries flavour and softens the mushrooms while adding richness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Remove from heat before adding the tapioca. Tapioca thickens by starch swelling as it cooks, so stirring it into a very hot mixture can make it gluey or uneven. Taking the pan off the heat lets it blend in smoothly and thicken gently.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, lemon, olive, bread, ketchup, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, lemon, olive, bread, ketchup, nutmeg, 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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