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Vegetable Marrow

A baked dish of sliced vegetable marrow layered with breadcrumbs, cheese, parsley, onion, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Vegetable Marrow

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a sharp oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dish

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

  2. Butter a fireproof dish thickly and sprinkle it with chopped parsley and onion.

  3. Add a layer of brown breadcrumbs.

Layer and bake

  1. Place several layers of thinly cut marrow in the dish, sprinkling each layer with breadcrumbs, grated cheese, and seasoning.

  2. Pour in a little gravy.

  3. Finish with a layer of breadcrumbs and cheese, and dot with butter.

  4. Bake until the marrow is tender when tested with a skewer.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Vegetable marrow
Forms the bulk of the dish and turns tender and soft as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown in the oven.
Brown breadcrumbs
Add texture to the layers and help soak up moisture as the dish bakes.
Grated cheese
Melts into the layers and browns on top, adding savoury flavour.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the layers as they cook.

The step that matters

Bake until the marrow is tender when tested with a skewer. Marrow is watery and dense, so it needs enough time for its fibres to soften fully. Testing with a skewer shows whether the centre is cooked through rather than just the surface.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, cheese, 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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