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Vegetable Marrow Au Gratin

A baked dish of boiled vegetable marrows topped with Parmesan, butter, nutmeg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,019 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Vegetable Marrow Au 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. Half boil the marrows, then quarter them lengthwise and drain thoroughly.

  2. Rub a baking dish with a slice of shallot or garlic and butter it well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the marrows in the dish, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  2. Dot with small pieces of butter and dust with bread crumbs.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes and serve hot in the original dish.

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. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 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 marrows
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and moist as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown while keeping the marrows from drying out.
Parmesan cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savoury, nutty flavour and a golden crust.
Powdered baked bread crumbs
Form a dry topping that crisps and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Drain the marrows thoroughly after boiling. Marrow holds a lot of water. Excess moisture left in the pieces will dilute the dish and make the topping soggy rather than golden.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parmesan cheese, pepper, nutmeg, bread):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parmesan cheese, pepper, nutmeg, bread. 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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