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Creamed Salsify

Creamed salsify is a creamy side dish made with cooked salsify, milk, butter, and cracker dust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Creamed Salsify

Ingredients

Directions

Make the creamed salsify

  1. In a pot, combine the sliced salsify and milk to cover.

  2. Season generously with salt and pepper.

  3. Stir in the cracker dust and butter.

  4. Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until thoroughly cooked.

  5. Add more cracker dust if needed to achieve desired thickness.

Serve

  1. Serve on toast, garnished with parsley if desired.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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 the dish, giving it its substance and vegetable flavour.
Milk
Provides the creamy liquid that cooks the salsify and forms the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavour to the sauce.
Cracker dust
Thickens the milk as it heats, so the sauce becomes body rather than watery.

The step that matters

Adding cracker dust gradually. Cracker dust absorbs liquid and thickens the sauce as it heats, so adding too much at once can make it stiff and pasty. Adding it in small amounts and stirring lets you reach the desired thickness.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, pepper):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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