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Stewed Salsify

A dish of stewed salsify roots cooked with butter, pepper, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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. Wash the salsify roots and scrape off their skins, placing them in cold water to prevent darkening.

  2. Cut the roots into small pieces and place them in fresh water with a little salt.

Cook and finish

  1. Stew the salsify in a covered pot until tender.

  2. Pour off the water.

  3. Add a small lump of butter, a little pepper, and ½ cup of sweet cream.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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
Form the dish's main body, becoming tender and mild when stewed.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished roots.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and body, coating the salsify to form a creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Place the peeled salsify in cold water right away. Salsify flesh discolours quickly when cut or peeled because its exposed surface oxidises in air. Keeping it submerged in cold water slows this darkening and keeps the roots pale.

“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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