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Stewed Salsify

A dish of boiled salsify roots simmered in milk with butter and cracker dust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Stewed Salsify

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape the salsify roots and place them in cold water to prevent blackening.

  2. Cut the roots into 1-inch lengths and boil in salted water until tender.

  3. Drain the water and return the salsify to the saucepan.

Stew and serve

  1. Pour 1 cup of hot milk over the salsify and simmer for 5 minutes.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and 3 tablespoons of cracker dust, then season to taste and serve.

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).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salsify roots
Provide the main vegetable body of the dish, becoming tender when boiled and simmered.
Hot milk
Supplies moisture and creamy body as the salsify simmers in it.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the stew a smooth, rounded flavour.
Cracker dust
Thickens the milk and butter mixture, helping the stew cling to the salsify.

The step that matters

Place the salsify in cold water after scraping. Salsify roots darken quickly once cut or scraped because exposed flesh oxidises when it meets air. Cold water slows this browning and keeps the roots pale.

“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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