Name: Mushrooms Au Gratin
Ingredients: Fresh mushrooms; Grated Parmesan cheese; Breadcrumbs; Finely chopped parsley; Finely chopped shallot; Butter; Coarse sea salt; Black pepper

Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mushrooms Au Gratin

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Wash and peel the mushrooms.
Place them in a fireproof baking dish.
Sprinkle lightly with coarse sea salt, black pepper, shallot, parsley, and Parmesan cheese.
Thickly cover with breadcrumbs and add small pieces of butter on top.
Bake in a moderately hot oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 15 minutes.
Serve in the dish.

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.

Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,982 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Mushroom + parmesan cheesetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,199 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, parmesan cheese, parsley, butter, pepper):

Spinachfits about as well
Shallotthe original
Capsicumfits about as well
Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, parmesan cheese, parsley, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.