Skip to main content
Main

Mushroom Tartlets, with Oream

Mushroom tartlets filled with sautéed mushrooms, shallots, and cream, topped with beaten egg whites and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and parsley 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 ↓

Mushroom Tartlets, with Oream

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 shells

  1. Butter and flour the tartlet moulds. Line them with a thin layer of puff paste.

Make the filling

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter and sauté the shallots until soft.

  2. Add the sliced mushrooms and cook over medium heat for a few minutes, seasoning with salt, pepper, and parsley.

  3. Fill the tartlet moulds with the mushroom mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until nearly done.

  2. Beat the egg whites until frothy and mix in the cold cream sauce.

  3. Remove the tartlets from the oven.

  4. Pour the egg mixture over each. Return to the oven until browned.

  5. Carefully remove the tartlets from the moulds.

  6. Serve on a napkin.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 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

Puff paste
Forms a flaky, crisp case that holds the filling while baking.
Mushrooms
Provide the main earthy flavor and savoury bulk of the filling.
Egg whites
Whipped to froth, they help the topping set and brown lightly in the oven.
Cream sauce
Adds richness and moisture to the egg topping, keeping it tender as it sets.

The step that matters

Returning the tartlets to the oven. Once the egg mixture is poured on, it needs only enough heat to set and brown. Overbaking can make the topping dry and rubbery, and the pastry can go soggy if the filling is too wet.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, shallot, pepper, egg, cream, sauce):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, shallot, pepper, egg, cream, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes