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Mushrooms Au Gratin

Mushrooms au gratin are baked mushroom caps filled with a veal and suet mixture, topped with breadcrumbs and served with stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Mushrooms Au Gratin

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 mushrooms

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Remove the gills and centers from the mushrooms.

  3. In a bowl, mix the minced veal, parsley, suet, and egg; season with salt, pepper, and cayenne.

  4. Place a small pat of butter in each mushroom cap.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill each mushroom with a teaspoon of the forcemeat mixture and cover with bread crumbs.

  2. Arrange the mushrooms in a buttered baking dish and pour the stock around them.

  3. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

  4. Serve with the gravy poured around the mushrooms.

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

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

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

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

  4. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Hollowed caps hold the filling and soften as they bake, becoming tender and juicy.
Egg
Binds the veal, suet and parsley into a forcemeat that holds its shape when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the caps and helps the crumbs brown.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.
Cooked minced veal
Provides the savory meaty body of the forcemeat filling.
Stock
Poured around the mushrooms, it keeps the dish moist and forms the gravy.

The step that matters

Baking until golden brown. Baking too briefly leaves the forcemeat and crumbs pale and the filling underset, while overbaking dries the mushrooms and the bound filling. Watch the color and texture rather than the clock alone.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, egg, pepper, butter, veal, 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.

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