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Vegetable Marrow or Gourd

Sliced cooked vegetable marrow served on buttered toast with pepper, coarse sea salt, melted butter, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Vegetable Marrow or Gourd

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the marrow

  1. Gather the vegetable marrow when it is the size of an egg.

  2. Boil it in salted water for 30 minutes or until tender.

  3. Cut the cooked marrow into slices ½ inch thick.

Make the toast

  1. Lay the slices over buttered toast.

  2. Sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Pour melted butter over the slices.

Fry and serve

  1. If the marrow is large, scoop out the seeds before cooking.

  2. Scoop out the seeds and cut raw slices.

  3. Fry in butter.

  4. Serve fried slices with melted butter and vinegar.

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. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Vegetable marrow
Forms the main body of the topping, providing soft flesh and moisture once cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and browns when the slices are fried.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery, mild flavor of the marrow.

The step that matters

Boil the marrow until tender before slicing. Raw marrow is too firm to slice cleanly. Cooking softens its flesh so the slices hold their shape on the toast without tearing.

“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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