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Vegetable Marrow Gratin

A baked dish of sliced vegetable marrow layered with cheese and a butter‑gravy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Vegetable Marrow Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Slice the vegetable marrow into rounds.

  2. Butter the bottom of a pie dish.

Assemble

  1. Layer the slices of marrow in the dish.

  2. Grate mild cheese over the first layer.

  3. Add another layer of marrow and sprinkle more cheese on top.

  4. Melt some butter in a saucepan and mix in gravy and finely powdered cheese until it half covers the layers.

  5. Pour the mixture around the layers of marrow.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Vegetable marrow
Forms the bulk of the dish, its soft slices cooking into tender layers.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the dish brown and carry flavour.
Mild cheese
Melts into the layers, adding richness and a golden, browned top.
Gravy
Supplies moisture and savoury flavour that soaks into the marrow layers.

The step that matters

Pouring the gravy and cheese mixture. The liquid should half cover the layers without flooding them. Too much makes the dish watery, while too little leaves the marrow dry as it bakes.

“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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