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Winter Squash

A simple steamed and mashed winter squash seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Winter squash and pepper work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 100 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Winter Squash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the squash in half and remove the seeds.

  2. Peel the pieces and steam them in as little water as possible.

  3. Use a steaming tin that fits in the kettle to keep the squash above the water.

Cook and mash

  1. Cook for 1 hour, then mash in the kettle.

  2. If the mixture is watery, let it sit on the fire for a few moments, mashing until dry.

Season

  1. Season with butter, salt, and pepper, being careful not to burn it.

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. Winter squash + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Winter squash + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together95 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Winter squash
Forms the main body of the mash, supplying starch and bulk as it cooks down.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the mash a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Season with butter, salt, and pepper, being careful not to burn it.. Butter contains milk solids that brown and then scorch over direct heat. Once it darkens, it turns bitter and can spoil the mash, so add it off the hottest heat and stir well.

Swap the winter squash

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Winter squashthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper. 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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