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Mashed Squash

A simple mashed squash dish made by boiling squash, seasoning, and adding butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mashed Squash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the squash and cut it into scallops.

  2. Place the squash in a saucepan and cover with water.

  3. Add a little coarse sea salt and cover the pan.

  4. Bring to a boil over high heat.

Mash and finish

  1. Once cooked, drain the squash and rub it through a colander.

  2. Return the squash to the saucepan.

  3. Season with salt and black pepper, then add a piece of butter. Mix well and heat thoroughly.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Squash
Forms the bulk of the dish and, once mashed, gives it a soft, smooth texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the mash a smooth, silky mouthfeel and flavour.

The step that matters

Rubbing the squash through a colander. Pushing the cooked squash through a colander breaks down fibres and removes excess water, so the mash becomes smooth rather than stringy or watery.

“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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