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Stuffed Summer Squash

Stuffed summer squash filled with a crumbly mixture of breadcrumbs, butter, onion, and eggs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Summer Squash

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the squash

  1. Select squashes of the same size and boil until tender.

  2. Slice the tops off and save them.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine rolled cracker or bread crumbs with coarse sea salt, black pepper, butter, and a small amount of chopped onion.

  2. Moisten the mixture with the squash removed from the inside.

  3. Add one or more eggs based on the amount prepared and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Refill the squashes with the mixture, replace the tops, and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 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

Summer squashes
Hollowed shells that hold the filling and soften when boiled and baked.
Cracker or bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the squash and give the filling body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the filling and helps it brown.
Eggs
Bind the filling so it holds its shape when baked.
Chopped onion
Adds aroma and savory flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Moistening the filling with squash pulp. Too much squash liquid makes the crumbs soggy and the filling loose, so add it gradually until the mixture is moist but still holds together before adding the eggs.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, egg. 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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