Name: Vegetable Marrows, Mashed
Ingredients: 2 good-sized vegetable marrows; ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 walnut-sized piece of butter; ¼ teaspoon black pepper

Why it works: Walnut and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,039 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Vegetable Marrows, Mashed

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

2 good-sized vegetable marrows
½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 walnut-sized piece of butter
¼ teaspoon black pepper

Directions

Prepare

Boil the vegetable marrows in salted water until tender.
Drain and transfer them to a bowl, then mash with a wooden spoon.

Finish and serve

Heat the mashed marrows in a saucepan with melted butter, pepper, and salt.
Serve piled high in the center of a dish of cutlets.

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.

Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,039 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,832 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Vegetable marrows: Provide the main bulk and mild flavor, softening into a mashable purée when boiled.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the mashed marrow.