Why it works: Butter and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Winter Squash, or Cashaw
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the squash
Pare the squash, remove the seeds, and cut it into pieces.
Stew the pieces slowly in a very little water until quite soft.
Drain the squash, squeeze and press it well.
Mash the squash with a very little butter, pepper, and salt.
Prepare the pumpkin
Cut the pumpkin in half, remove all seeds, cut into thick slices, and pare them.
Put the slices into a pot with a very little water and stew gently for an hour or until soft enough to mash.
Drain and squeeze the pumpkin until as dry as possible.
Mash the pumpkin, adding a little pepper, salt, and a very little butter.
Cook the hominy
Wash the hominy very clean through three or four waters.
Put the hominy into a pot with two quarts of water to one quart of hominy and boil slowly for five hours.
Drain the liquid from the hominy through a colander.
Stir a small piece of fresh butter into the hominy.
The small-grained hominy is boiled in less water and generally eaten with butter and sugar.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Butter | 1 tbsp (14g) | 102 |
| Black Pepper | 1 tsp ground (2.3g) | 6 |
| Salt | 1 tsp (6g) | 0 |
| Water | not in our table | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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. See the original page.
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.
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Winter squash (in the method)
- Softened by stewing, it becomes the smooth, moist body of the mashed dish.
- Pumpkin (in the method)
- Stewed until soft and drained, it gives the mash its bulk and body.
- Hominy
- Long slow boiling softens the corn kernels so they become tender and absorb flavour.
- Butter
- Added in small amounts, it adds richness and moisture to the mash and hominy.
The step that matters
Drain and squeeze the squash and pumpkin well. Excess water left in stewed squash or pumpkin makes a loose, watery mash. Squeezing out moisture before mashing gives a thicker, more concentrated texture.
“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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