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Vegetable Marrow As an Imitation of Apples

A sweet and spiced vegetable marrow cooked slowly in wine and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Vegetable Marrow As an Imitation of Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the vegetable marrow and remove the soft pulp and seeds.

  2. Cut the marrow into thin slices.

Layer and cook

  1. Butter an enamelled pot and layer the sliced marrow with sugar, flour or bread crumbs, cloves, and a pinch of salt.

  2. Pour the wine and vinegar mixture over the last layer.

  3. Simmer for 2 hours, stirring carefully to prevent burning.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Wine + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Vegetable marrow
Forms the bulk of the dish and softens into tender pieces as it simmers.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the wine and vinegar.
Flour or bread crumbs
Helps thicken the cooking liquid and lightly bind the layers.
Wine and vinegar
Provides acidity and liquid that flavours the marrow during slow simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer for 2 hours, stirring carefully. Long, gentle simmering softens the marrow, but the sugar and thin liquid can scorch on the base of the pot. Careful stirring keeps the layers intact and prevents burning.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, wine, vinegar, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, wine, vinegar, butter. 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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