Skip to main content
Main

Mushroom Tartlets

Mushroom tartlets filled with sautéed mushrooms, onion, and vermicelli, baked in a whole-wheat crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Mushroom Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Peel and wash the mushrooms, then cut them into pieces.

  2. Melt the butter in a frying pan and fry the mushrooms and onion until softened, adding pepper and salt to taste.

  3. Stir in the vermicelli and cook in the mushroom juice until tender.

Assemble and bake

  1. Let the mixture cool, then line tartlet tins with whole-wheat crust.

  2. Fill the tins with the mushroom mixture, cover with crust, and press the edges together.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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

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

  2. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main filling and release juices that cook the vermicelli until tender.
Vermicelli
Absorbs the mushroom juices and thickens the filling so it holds its shape in the tart.
Butter
Adds fat for frying the mushrooms and onion, carrying flavour and aiding browning.
Onion
Adds aroma and savoury sweetness as it softens in the butter.

The step that matters

Cooking the vermicelli in the mushroom juice. The filling must be cooked until the vermicelli is fully tender and the liquid has reduced, because undercooked starch stays firm and any leftover liquid can soften the crust and make the tartlets soggy during baking.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, 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.

You might also like

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