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Stewed Salsify or Oyster Plant

A stew of salsify roots cooked with milk, butter, flour, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Stewed Salsify or Oyster Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape the salsify roots and place them in cold water.

  2. Cut the roots into 1-inch pieces and put them in a saucepan with hot water to cover.

  3. Stew until tender.

Finish the sauce

  1. Drain most of the water and add 1 cup of milk.

  2. Stew for 10 minutes after it begins to boil.

  3. Add a large lump of butter, cut into bits and rolled in flour, along with pepper and salt to taste.

  4. Boil once more and 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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 roots
Provide the main vegetable body and a mild, sweet flavour when stewed until tender.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid that the stewed roots are finished in.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the sauce feel smooth and full-bodied.
Flour
Thickens the milk-based liquid when rolled onto the butter and stirred in.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour. Butter rolled in flour must be stirred in while the liquid is hot so the starch can swell and thicken the sauce evenly. Adding it to a cold or unstirred pan can leave lumps or a thin, uneven sauce.

“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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