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Mushrooms, Provincial

A mushroom dish with butter, onion, parsley, bay leaf, garlic, Espagnole and tomato sauces, finished with anchovy butter, lemon juice, and parsley, served with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Mushrooms, Provincial

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and slice the Cepes.

  2. In a flat saucepan, combine the Cepes, butter, chopped onion, parsley faggot, bay leaf, and garlic.

Cook

  1. Cook over brisk heat until moisture is reduced.

  2. Add Espagnole sauce and tomato sauce, then season with salt and pepper.

  3. Cook for about 5 minutes, then remove the faggot.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, stir in anchovy butter, lemon juice, and chopped parsley.

  2. Toss over heat until the butter melts and serve with toast.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

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

  3. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Cepes
Provide the main earthy flavour and meaty texture of the dish.
Butter
Carries flavour and gives the mushrooms a rich, glossy coating as it melts.
Espagnole sauce
Adds body and a deep, savoury richness to the mushrooms.
Anchovy butter
Adds salty, savoury depth that rounds out the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and mushroom flavours.

The step that matters

Reduce the moisture over brisk heat. Mushrooms release a lot of water. If they are crowded or cooked gently, they stew instead of browning, leaving a watery sauce and little concentrated flavour. Cooking hot until the liquid evaporates concentrates the flavour and lets the mushrooms take on colour.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, parsley, garlic, sauce, tomato, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, parsley, garlic, sauce, tomato, 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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