Skip to main content
Bread

Mushroom-toast, or Croute Aux Champignons

A toasted bread served with a sautéed mushroom mixture flavored with butter, mace, cayenne, flour, broth, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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-toast, or Croute Aux Champignons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the stems from the mushrooms and remove the gills.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat.

Make the mushroom filling

  1. Add the mushrooms, mace, and cayenne; stew for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring often.

  2. Add the flour and stir until lightly browned.

  3. Gradually pour in the gravy or broth and simmer for 2 minutes.

  4. Season with salt and lemon juice.

Toast and serve

  1. Fry the bread in butter until light brown, or grill it after buttering.

  2. Serve the mushroom mixture on the prepared bread.

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

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

  2. Mushroom + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Give the main bulk and savoury flavour as they release moisture and soften while stewing.
Butter
Carries flavour and browns the bread, adding richness to the toast.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid and helps the mushrooms form a coating when lightly browned.
Gravy or beef broth
Supplies the liquid and savoury depth that becomes the sauce around the mushrooms.
Bread
Provides a crisp, absorbent base that holds the mushroom mixture.

The step that matters

Browning the flour. Flour must be stirred until lightly browned before the liquid goes in; this cooks out its raw taste and builds colour and flavour. Adding liquid too early can leave lumps, so stir steadily while pouring in the gravy or broth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, pepper, flour, beef, lemon, bread):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, pepper, flour, beef, lemon, bread. 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.

More mushroom toast recipes

Creamed 3 See all 72 →

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesNut BreadNut Bread109 recipesWheat BreadWheat Bread65 recipes