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Summer Squash or Cymlings

A fried cake made from mashed summer squash, cream, flour, egg, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Summer Squash or Cymlings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the squash

  1. Boil the summer squash until tender.

  2. Mash the boiled squash.

Make the cakes

  1. Mix the mashed squash with cream, salt, flour, and the beaten egg.

  2. Form the mixture into cakes.

  3. Fry the cakes in a little butter.

Serve

  1. Season the mashed squash with butter, pepper, and salt to taste.

  2. Serve the seasoned squash.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Summer squash
Forms the bulk of the cakes and supplies moisture and body once mashed.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the cakes hold their shape when fried.
Flour
Absorbs liquid and adds structure so the cakes firm up during frying.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the mixture a softer, smoother texture.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and helps the outside of the cakes brown when fried.

The step that matters

Forming and frying the cakes. The mixture is soft and wet, so it can fall apart. Enough flour and egg must bind it, and the cakes need to set in hot fat before being turned, otherwise they break up and absorb too much butter.

“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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