Name: Stuffed Summer Squash
Ingredients: summer squashes (same size); 1 tablespoon melted butter; 1 tablespoon thick cream; 2 eggs; salt to taste; 12 ears of corn (grated)

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Summer Squash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the squash

Cut off the hard stems of the summer squashes and parboil them.
Cut out a round disk around the stem and scoop out some of the contents.

Fill and bake

In a bowl, mix the grated corn, melted butter, thick cream, beaten eggs, and salt.
Fill each squash with the mixture and bake until brown.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,345 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Cream + corntop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the corn mixture so it sets into a firm filling when baked.
Thick cream: Adds richness and moisture to the corn filling.
Melted butter: Adds fat for flavour and helps the filling brown in the oven.
Grated corn: Provides the main filling, adding sweetness and bulk.

“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.