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Salsify, Fried and Stewed

Salsify, fried and stewed, is a dish of boiled salsify that is either stewed in milk or mashed into cakes 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

  1. Scrape the salsify to remove the outer covering.

  2. Boil the salsify in water until soft.

  3. Remove the salsify from water, cut it up, and wash it.

Make the stewed salsify

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

  2. Season the stewed salsify with salt and black pepper.

  3. Add a large slice of butter off the heat.

Make and fry the cakes

  1. For frying, mash the boiled salsify and season the mashed salsify 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.

  5. Fry the battered cakes.

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 dish and the fried cakes.
Milk
Gives the stew a creamy, moist texture and forms the liquid base of the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter so it coats the cakes and sets when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth finish to the stewed salsify.

The step that matters

Fry the battered cakes. Frying at a suitable heat sets the egg-and-flour batter into a crisp, browned coating while the inside stays hot. Too little heat lets the batter soak up oil and turn greasy; too much browns it before the cakes heat through.

“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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