Why it works: Meat and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,432 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Stuffed Vegetable Marrow
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 marrow
Peel the vegetable marrow.
Cut off one end and scoop out all the seeds and core.
Stuff and tie
Mix the egg with the sausage meat and season well.
Fill the marrow with the mixture and replace the end.
Tie the end together with tape or strips of muslin.
Bake and serve
Place in a baking tin with ½ pint of stock.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until tender.
Serve on a hot dish with a little gravy around.
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.
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Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,432 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Vegetable marrow
- Forms the edible shell that holds the filling and softens into a tender, moist vessel when baked.
- Sausage meat
- Supplies fat and savoury flavour that seasons the filling and keeps it moist as it cooks.
- Egg
- Binds the sausage meat so the filling sets firmly enough to slice rather than crumble.
- Stock
- Provides liquid in the tin that steams the marrow and keeps it from drying out in the oven.
The step that matters
Tie the end securely before baking. The filling expands and loosens as it heats, so a loose or poorly sealed end can let juices and filling escape, leaving the stuffing dry and the marrow uneven.
“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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