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Muscles in White Wine

Mussels cooked in white wine, shallots, garlic, butter, and seasoned with parsley, cayenne pepper, and bread crumbs.

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

Muscles in White Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mussels

  1. Steam the mussels until they open.

  2. Place the mussels in a colander over a stewpan to collect the liquor.

  3. Remove half of the shells, keeping only those with flesh attached.

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the shallots and garlic in butter without browning them.

  2. Add the mussels, white wine, and collected liquor; bring to a boil for a few minutes.

  3. Thicken the liquid with butter kneaded with bread crumbs, parsley, and cayenne pepper.

  4. Remove from heat until the butter is melted, then serve immediately.

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

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

  3. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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

Mussels (in the method)
Provide the main protein and the briny liquor that flavours the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma, and its alcohol helps lift flavours from the shellfish and aromatics.
Butter
Adds richness and body, and thickens the liquid when kneaded with bread crumbs.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help thicken the butter mixture into the sauce.
Shallots
Provide a mild sweet aromatic base for the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken without boiling the butter. Adding kneaded butter off the heat lets it melt gently and emulsify into the liquid. Overheating can separate the butter into greasy droplets and leave the sauce oily rather than smooth.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, garlic, butter, white wine, bread, parsley, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, garlic, butter, white wine, bread, parsley, 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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