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Salsify, Fried and Stewed

Salsify is boiled, then either stewed in milk or mashed into cakes, battered, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Salsify, Fried and Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salsify

  1. Scrape the salsify to remove the outer covering.

  2. Boil the salsify in water until soft.

  3. Remove from water, cut into pieces, and wash.

Stew

  1. For stewing, place salsify in a skillet with 1 pint of milk and stew for 15 minutes.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper, then stir in a large slice of butter before serving.

Make and fry the cakes

  1. For frying, mash the boiled salsify and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Form the mixture into small cakes.

  3. Prepare a batter with flour, milk, and 2 eggs.

  4. Dip the cakes into the batter and fry until golden.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Salsify
Forms the main body of both the stewed and fried dishes.
Milk
Gently cooks the salsify in the stew and forms the liquid base of the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter so it coats the cakes and sets when fried.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it clings to the cakes before frying.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes until golden. The batter must be fully coated and the oil hot enough to brown the outside quickly; otherwise the batter absorbs oil and the cakes may stay pale and greasy inside.

“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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