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Puree of Vegetable Marrow

A creamy puree made from vegetable marrows, butter, onion, stock, sugar, cream, and served with fried croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Puree of Vegetable Marrow

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Puree of Vegetable Marrow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare, quarter, and remove the pith and seeds from the vegetable marrows.

Make the puree

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter and fry the sliced onion for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the marrows, white stock or milk, salt, and sugar; simmer until the vegetables are tender.

  3. Drain the mixture and rub it through a fine sieve.

  4. Incorporate the puree with the stock or milk it was simmered in.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the cream, adjust seasoning to taste, and serve with fried croutons.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Vegetable marrows
Form the bulk of the puree, providing the main body and mild flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavor of the frying onion.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and depth as it softens in butter.
White stock or milk
Cooks the marrows and adds moisture to loosen the puree.
Cream
Adds fat and a smooth, silky texture to the finished puree.

The step that matters

Rubbing the puree through a fine sieve. Pressing the cooked vegetables through a fine sieve breaks down fibers and removes any remaining pieces of skin or seeds, which gives a smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the puree grainy and stringy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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