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Stuffed Squash, Stanford Style

A baked squash filled with sautéed onions, bread crumbs, parsley, egg yolks, and butter, topped with bread crumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Stuffed Squash, Stanford Style

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. In a saucepan, heat butter or oil and lightly fry the chopped onions.

  2. Add the prepared squash and cook until moisture is reduced.

  3. Stir in the bread crumbs, season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  4. Add the chopped parsley and egg yolks, mixing well.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the squash with the mixture and sprinkle additional bread crumbs on top.

  2. Dot each squash with a piece of butter.

  3. Place in a buttered baking pan and bake at 300°F (150°C) until nicely browned.

  4. Serve with a reduced Madeira wine sauce.

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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Squash
Forms the edible shell that holds the filling and softens as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and help it set firm during baking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the squash and give the filling body and a browned topping.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth when lightly fried in butter or oil.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the topping brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Cooking the squash until moisture is reduced. Excess water dilutes the filling and can keep it from setting, so the squash should be cooked until its moisture has reduced before the bread crumbs and egg yolks are added.

Swap the onion

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

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

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