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Vegetable Marrow Stuffed

A savory dish of vegetable marrows filled with a veal, ham, and breadcrumb mixture, baked and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Vegetable Marrow Stuffed

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the veal and ham together.

  2. Pound the mixture to a paste in a mortar slightly rubbed with garlic. Pass the mixture through a coarse sieve and return it to the mortar.

  3. Work in the butter, bread crumbs, spices, and the yolks of the eggs.

Stuff and bake

  1. Cut average-sized vegetable marrows in half and scoop out the seeds.

  2. Fill the marrows with the mixture.

  3. Wrap each marrow in buttered paper tied with string.

  4. Place them closely together in a buttered tin and cover with a tin plate.

  5. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until done.

Serve

  1. Carefully remove the paper, place the marrows on a dish, and serve with gravy made from stock, thickened with egg yolk, and a splash of wine or lemon.

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

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

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the filling and gives it a firm, savoury texture when pounded.
Ham or good bacon
Adds salty, savoury flavour and fat that keeps the filling moist.
Eggs
Yolks bind the filling so it holds together when baked and sliced.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling and keeps the marrow from drying out.
Bread crumbs
Absorb fat and moisture, lightening the filling and helping it hold its shape.

The step that matters

Pounding the filling to a paste. Pounding and sieving the meat breaks it into a fine, even texture so the stuffing binds smoothly and does not turn crumbly or lumpy when baked.

“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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