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Cream Squash

A simple squash dish made with mashed squash, milk, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream Squash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil and mash the squash.

  2. Return the mashed squash to the saucepan.

Make the creamed squash

  1. Add ½ cup of milk and simmer.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon of butter rolled in 1 tablespoon of flour.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  4. Stir for 3 minutes and then pour out.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

What each ingredient does

Squash
Forms the bulk and body of the dish once mashed.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the mashed squash into a smooth texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when heated with the milk.

The step that matters

Stir in the butter and flour mixture. Flour thickens only when its starch is evenly dispersed and heated in the liquid. Stirring it in well and keeping the mixture simmering prevents lumps and gives a smooth, thick result.

“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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