Name: Brochetons Au Court Bouillon, Sauce Aux Champignons
Ingredients: fish; ½ cup melted butter; 4 cups mushrooms; mushroom liquor

Why it works: Butter and mushroom 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 ↓

Brochetons Au Court Bouillon, Sauce Aux Champignons

Ingredients

fish
½ cup melted butter
4 cups mushrooms
mushroom liquor

Directions

Dress the fish as instructed in the previous article.
Serve the fish and cover them with melted butter.
Add the mushrooms and reduced mushroom liquor to the butter.
Mask the fish with the mushroom sauce.

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.

Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Fish + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together444 recipes

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