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Stewed Salsify

A stew of sliced salsify cooked with water, cream, butter, flour, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Salsify

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape the salsify well and cut it into round slices.

  2. Stew the salsify in a pot barely covered with water until perfectly tender.

  3. Pour off all but ½ cup of the water.

Finish and serve

  1. Add ¼ cup of rich cream, 2 ounces of butter rubbed with 1 tablespoon of flour, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Let it simmer for a few minutes, then serve.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Salsify
Is the main vegetable, becoming tender through stewing in a small amount of water.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Rubbed into the butter to thicken the cooking liquid into a light sauce.
Rich cream
Adds body and richness, combining with the reduced water to form a creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Add the butter and flour mixture to the simmering liquid. Flour rubbed into butter is added to hot liquid so it disperses evenly and thickens smoothly. Adding it all at once or without enough simmering can leave lumps or a starchy taste.

“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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