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Stuffed Squash

A baked squash filled with bread crumbs, salt pork, parsley, and gravy, finished with butter and hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Squash

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the squash

  1. Pare the squash.

  2. Cut off a slice from the top.

  3. Remove the seeds.

  4. Soak the squash in salt water for 1 hour.

Stuff and bake

  1. Fill the squash with a mixture of bread crumbs, chopped salt pork, parsley, and gravy.

  2. Replace the top slice of the squash.

  3. Place the squash in a pudding dish.

  4. Add a few spoonfuls of melted butter to the bottom of the dish.

  5. Add twice as much hot water to the bottom of the dish.

  6. Cover the dish tightly.

  7. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 2 hours, or until tender.

Serve

  1. Transfer the stuffed squash to a deep dish.

  2. Pour gravy over the stuffed squash.

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

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

  2. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Squash
Forms the edible shell and becomes tender and sweet as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and gravy, giving the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the stuffing as it cooks.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness to the cooking liquid in the dish.
Gravy
Moistens the stuffing and adds savory flavor throughout the dish.

The step that matters

Cover the dish tightly. A tight cover traps steam so the squash cooks through and softens evenly. Without it, the liquid evaporates and the flesh can dry out before it becomes tender.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pork, butter. 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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