Skip to main content
Main

Scalloped Squash, Astor Style

A baked squash dish cooked with clarified butter, butter, lemon juice, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Scalloped Squash, Astor Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and quarter the squash, trimming the edges.

  2. Parboil the squash for 3 minutes, then drain and dry them.

Cook and glaze

  1. In a flat saucepan, heat the clarified butter over low heat.

  2. Add the squash, season with salt and pepper, and cover the saucepan.

  3. Cook slowly until the squash is nicely glazed.

Finish and serve

  1. In the saucepan, add the butter, lemon juice, and parsley off the heat. Stir until the butter melts, then pour the sauce over the squash and 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Squash
Forms the tender body of the dish and absorbs the buttery glaze as it cooks.
Clarified butter
Carries heat evenly for glazing and adds rich flavour without milk solids burning.
Butter
Melts into the finishing sauce, adding richness and a smooth, glossy texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until the squash is nicely glazed. Low, gentle heat under a lid lets the squash soften and release moisture that mixes with the butter, giving a glaze rather than scorching the fat and drying the surface.

“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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes