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Stuffed Vegetable Marrow

A baked vegetable marrow filled with ham, suet, breadcrumbs, parsley, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Vegetable Marrow

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. Peel the marrow, cut it in half lengthwise, and remove the seeds from the center.

  2. Prepare a stuffing using the ham, suet, bread crumbs, parsley, and egg.

  3. Boil the marrow in salted water for 15 minutes, then drain and cool.

Stuff and bake

  1. Place the marrow halves on a buttered baking tray and fill with the stuffing.

  2. Sprinkle breadcrumbs on top and add small pieces of butter.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 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

Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture in the stuffing and form a crisp, browned topping.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning on the topping and enriches the flavor.

The step that matters

Drain and cool the marrow before stuffing. Marrow holds a lot of water. If it is stuffed while hot or still wet, excess moisture thins the stuffing and makes the filling soggy, so draining and cooling lets it firm up and keeps the filling in place.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, bread, egg, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, bread, egg, 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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