Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Mashed Squash
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Peel, seed, and slice the fresh summer squashes.
Soak the slices in cold water for 10 minutes.
Cook and mash
Boil the squashes in salted water until tender, about 20 minutes for young squash.
Mash the cooked squash in a colander to remove excess water.
Transfer to a deep dish.
Season and serve
Season with pepper, salt, and butter.
Serve hot.
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.
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Fresh summer squashes
- Form the main body of the dish, becoming soft and mashable once boiled.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the mashed squash.
The step that matters
Mash the cooked squash in a colander to remove excess water. Squash holds a lot of water, and excess moisture makes mashed squash watery and diluted. Draining and mashing it well concentrates the flavor and gives a thicker texture.
“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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