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Tomatoes with Mushrooms

A tomato puree with fried mushrooms, served hot, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomatoes with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the tomatoes in slightly salted water, then strain and rub through a sieve.

  2. Soak the biscuits in tepid water or milk, then pass them through a sieve.

  3. Mix the biscuits with the tomatoes in a saucepan, adding the Bovril, sugar, half the butter, and enough pepper and salt to taste.

  4. Stir until it boils, then add the cream and keep hot.

Cook the mushrooms

  1. Wash, clean, and dry the mushrooms, then fry them in the remaining butter, seasoning with pepper and salt, and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the tomato puree in a round dish and surround it with the fried mushrooms.

  2. Sprinkle the remaining chopped parsley over the top and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Cream + buttertop 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and tangy flavour of the puree.
Cracknel biscuits
Thicken the tomato mixture into a smooth, body-rich puree.
Cream
Adds richness and softens the acidity of the tomatoes.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the mushrooms and the tomato base.
Fresh mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and a tender, savoury texture when fried.

The step that matters

Stir until it boils, then add the cream and keep hot.. Cream added to a boiling acidic tomato mixture can curdle or separate, so it is best stirred in once the base is hot and kept warm rather than boiled again.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, parsley, pepper, biscuit, butter, sugar, mushroom. 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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