Why it works: Meat and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,924 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Stewed Squash
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pare, seed, and quarter the squash.
Cook the squash in boiling salted water until soft.
Finish and serve
Drain the water and add a few tablespoons of strained gravy.
Beat the squash in the saucepan until smooth and stiff like apple sauce.
Serve the squash on crustless slices of fried bread.
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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Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,924 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Squash
- Forms the main body of the dish, becoming soft and then smooth when cooked and beaten.
- Strained gravy
- Adds moisture and savory flavor to the squash as it is beaten.
The step that matters
Beating the squash until smooth and stiff. Squash must be drained well after cooking, or excess water will keep it loose. Beating it while hot breaks down the cooked fibres into a smooth, thick purée that holds its shape like apple sauce.
“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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