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Stuffed Squash

Stuffed squash baked with bread crumbs, butter, onion, parsley or mint, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Stuffed Squash

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Boil or steam the squash until tender, being careful not to break it.

  2. Scoop out the seeds with a spoon.

Stuff and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix bread crumbs, melted butter, minced onion, chopped parsley or mint, salt, and pepper.

  2. Fill the cavity of the squash with the stuffing and fasten it together.

  3. Place in the oven and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes, basting frequently with butter and hot water.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Summer squash
Serves as the edible shell that holds the stuffing while it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the melted butter and form the body of the stuffing.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the stuffing and squash brown during baking.

The step that matters

Boil or steam the squash until tender without breaking it. Squash that is undercooked stays firm and may not scoop or fill neatly, while overcooked squash turns soft and fragile and can split. Gentle, even cooking keeps the shell intact enough to hold the stuffing through baking.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, parsley, pepper. 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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