Skip to main content
Main

Salsify or Oyster Plant

Salsify is boiled, seasoned with butter, salt, pepper, or served with cream sauce or fried in batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Oyster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Salsify or Oyster Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape the salsify and immediately place it in cold water with a little vinegar or lemon juice to prevent discoloration.

Cook

  1. Cook in boiling salted water until tender, about one hour.

  2. Drain and season with butter, salt, and pepper.

Serve

  1. Alternatively, cut into half-inch pieces and serve with cream sauce.

  2. You can also dip in fritter batter and fry in hot fat, or when cold, brown in butter.

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. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 when simmered and taking on flavor from butter and seasoning.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Its acidity slows browning of the cut root so the salsify stays pale.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor when tossed over the cooked salsify or used to brown it.
Fritter batter
Forms a crisp coating that browns and seals in moisture when fried in hot fat.

The step that matters

Place the scraped salsify in acidulated cold water right away. Cut salsify darkens quickly when exposed to air because its cut surfaces oxidize. Acid and cold water slow this discoloration, so delay can leave the roots grey and unappealing.

“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.

More salsify recipes

Stewed 41Fried 30Fritters 26Boiled 18Soup 13Stew 10 See all 28 →

You might also like

Mock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes