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Dessert

Squash Pie

A baked pie made with squash, sugar, milk, butter, eggs, ginger, lemon extract, salt, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Squash Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the squash

  1. Peel the squash, steam it until soft, and strain it.

Make the filling

  1. In a large bowl, combine the strained squash, sugar, ginger, salt, and finely rolled cracker crumbs.

  2. Boil the milk and melt the butter in it.

  3. Gradually pour the milk mixture over the squash while stirring continuously.

  4. Once thoroughly mixed, add the beaten eggs and stir well.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into deep pie plates with a nice undercrust.

  2. Bake until set and 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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Butter + eggtop 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

Squash
Provides the main body and flavor of the filling once cooked and strained.
Eggs
Set the filling into a custard-like texture as they cook.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, giving the filling a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and aids browning as it bakes.
Cracker crumbs
Help thicken the filling and give it body as it bakes.

The step that matters

Adding the milk mixture to the squash. Pouring the hot milk in gradually while stirring continuously keeps the eggs added later from scrambling and keeps the filling smooth.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, butter, egg, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, butter, egg, lemon. 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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