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Winter Squash

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Winter Squash

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the winter squash into pieces.

  2. Stew the squash with pieces of meat, or parboil it.

  3. Mash the squash and season with cream, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  4. If desired, mix in a little onion before stewing or baking.

  5. Bake the seasoned squash until heated through.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Winter squash + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together47 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Winter squash + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

  5. Cream + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Cream and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (winter squash, meat, cream, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Kalefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against winter squash, meat, cream, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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