Skip to main content
Baking

Vegetable Marrows

A stuffed vegetable marrow filled with minced onion, cooked meat, breadcrumbs, parsley, beef suet, and egg, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Vegetable Marrows

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the vegetable marrow and cut it in half lengthwise.

  2. Remove all seeds and fibers from the cavity.

Stuff and tie

  1. In a bowl, mix the minced onion, cooked meat, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, parsley, beef suet, and beaten egg.

  2. Fill the cavity of the marrow with the stuffing mixture.

  3. Tie the two halves together with thin string and brush the outside with oiled butter.

Cook

  1. Place the marrow in a greased paper bag and cook for 45 minutes.

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. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Vegetable marrow
Forms the edible shell that holds the stuffing and softens as it cooks.
Cooked meat
Adds savory flavor and body to the stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the stuffing so it holds its shape.
Egg
Binds the stuffing mixture and helps it set when cooked.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich in flavor.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Removing all seeds and fibers from the cavity. Leftover seeds and fibers can stay watery and bitter and leave gaps, so the stuffing sits unevenly and the marrow cooks unevenly. A clean cavity lets the filling sit firmly against the flesh.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, bread, pepper, parsley, beef, egg, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, pepper, parsley, beef, egg, butter. 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.

You might also like

Delicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipesCitron CakeCitron Cake68 recipesScotch CakeScotch Cake63 recipes