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Vegetable Marrow

A soup made from marrow, onion, butter, flour, milk, and water, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Vegetable Marrow

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Mince the onion finely.

  2. Cut the vegetable marrow into small pieces, removing the seeds.

  3. Melt 1 oz of butter in a stewpan. Add the vegetables.

  4. Cover and steam for 15 to 20 minutes.

Make the soup

  1. Add milk and water.

  2. Cook gently for about 40 minutes or until tender.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

Thicken and serve

  1. Melt the remaining butter. Stir in the flour smoothly.

  2. Add the soup. Stir until it boils.

  3. Simmer for 5 minutes. Season to taste.

  4. Serve.

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

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavour of the softened vegetables.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks with the butter into a smooth base.
Vegetable marrow (in the method)
Forms the body of the soup, softening into a smooth purée when sieved.
Onion
Adds savoury flavour as it softens during steaming.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour smoothly. Flour added to hot butter can clump if not stirred in well; cooking it briefly in the fat and whisking in liquid gradually keeps the thickened soup smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, milk. 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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