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Scalloped Salsify

A baked dish of mashed salsify topped with buttered breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Scalloped Salsify

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 salsify

  1. Boil the salsify until tender.

  2. Mash the salsify and mix in salt, butter, cream, celery salt, and pepper.

Fill and bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Sprinkle buttered scallop shells with browned bread crumbs.

  3. Fill the shells with the salsify mixture, sprinkle with more bread crumbs, and place a small piece of butter on top.

  4. Brown quickly in the oven.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Celery + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,110 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Salsify
Forms the main body of the dish, giving the filling its bulk and mild, earthy flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and melts over the top to help the crumbs brown.
Cream
Adds moisture and makes the mashed salsify smooth and soft.
Browned bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that contrasts with the soft filling.

The step that matters

Brown quickly in the oven.. A hot oven browns the crumb topping through the Maillard reaction while the filling heats through. Overbaking dries out the mashed salsify and can scorch the crumbs.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, pepper, bread. 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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