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Summer Squash Stewed

A simple dish of boiled summer squash mashed and served creamy, buttery, or scalloped.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Summer Squash Stewed

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. Wash the squash in cold water.

  2. If the skin is tough, peel it; otherwise, slice it.

  3. Place the squash in boiling water to cover and boil for about 20 minutes until tender.

  4. Drain and mash the squash through a colander.

Finish the squash

  1. For a creamy version, mix in ½ cup of cream and the beaten yolk of one egg.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then heat gently until warm.

  3. For a buttery version, add plenty of butter, season with salt and pepper, and stir over heat until most moisture evaporates.

  4. For a scalloped version, mix with bread crumbs, salt, pepper and butter, then brown in the oven at 350°F (175°C).

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Summer squash
Forms the main body of the dish once cooked and mashed.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the mash.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the mixture as it gently heats.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, and helps drive off moisture in the buttery version.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping in the scalloped version.

The step that matters

Drain and mash the squash well. Excess water left in the squash dilutes the cream and butter and makes the mash loose. Draining and pressing it through a colander removes that moisture so the finished dish holds its texture.

“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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