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Mushrooms

Roasted mushrooms with butter, pepper, and sea salt served on toast with cooking liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mushrooms

Oven, in the book's wordsA very moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Peel the mushrooms and rinse them to remove any grit.

  2. Cut off the ends of the stalks.

  3. Place them on a greased baking sheet with the stalks facing upwards.

Season and roast

  1. Add small pieces of butter on each mushroom, and sprinkle with pepper and salt.

  2. Cover with buttered paper and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes, or until tender.

Serve

  1. Serve on toast, pouring the cooking liquid over them.

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

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Main ingredient; they release moisture that gathers as cooking liquid and turns tender as they roast.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour across the mushrooms and helping them brown lightly.
Pepper
Adds sharp aroma and warmth that complements the mushrooms' earthy flavour.

The step that matters

Covering and baking until tender. The buttered paper traps steam so the mushrooms cook through gently. Judge by tenderness rather than the clock alone, since overbaking dries the caps and shrinks them.

“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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