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Vegetable Marrow Stew

A stew of vegetable marrow, garlic, butter, flour, and Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Vegetable Marrow Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and cut the vegetable marrows into pieces the size of a small egg.

  2. Rub a saucepan with garlic and melt the butter over medium heat.

Cook the stew

  1. Add the flour and stir, then add the vegetable marrow pieces.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg, tossing to prevent burning.

  3. After about 15 minutes, add the grated Parmesan cheese and stir.

  4. If the mixture looks dry, add milk and let it simmer until the marrows are tender.

Serve

  1. Serve with or without croutons around the dish.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Vegetable marrows
Form the bulk of the stew and soften into tender pieces as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while the marrows cook in the pan.
Flour
Thickens the cooking juices and helps the stew hold together.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and helps the stew turn rich and thick.

The step that matters

Tossing the marrow pieces while they cook. Stirring keeps the pieces moving over medium heat so the flour and butter do not scorch on the pan base before the marrows release their water.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg, parmesan cheese, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg, parmesan cheese, milk. 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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