Name: To Bboil Mushrooms
Ingredients: mushrooms; coarse sea salt; black pepper; cold butter

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 ↓

To Bboil Mushrooms

Ingredients

mushrooms
coarse sea salt
black pepper
cold butter

Directions

Prepare a clear cinder fire and heat a gridiron.
Rub the bars of the gridiron with suet to prevent sticking.
Place the mushrooms on the gridiron with their stalks facing upwards.
Sprinkle the mushrooms lightly with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Serve the mushrooms on a hot dish with a little cold butter underneath and on top.
Cook until they begin to steam, indicating they are done.

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.

Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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