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Vegetable Marrows, Mashed

Mashed zucchini made with butter, cream, and flour, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Vegetable Marrows, Mashed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the puree

  1. Boil the marrows in salted water until tender, then strain and press through a fine sieve.

Cook the puree

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the puree, cream, and a little pepper.

  2. Stir over low heat for 5 to 6 minutes, adding flour until the puree reaches the desired consistency.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

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

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

Marrows
Form the soft, pureed body of the dish once boiled and pressed through a sieve.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the puree a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the puree and softening its flavour.
Flour
Thickens the puree, so it can be adjusted to the desired consistency.

The step that matters

Stirring over low heat with flour. Gentle heat keeps the puree from scorching while the flour is added gradually. Flour thickens as it is stirred with warm liquid, so adding too much at once can make the puree stiff and pasty.

“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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