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Salsify or Vegetable Oysters

Fried salsify slices coated in breadcrumbs, served with a milk and flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Salsify or Vegetable Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salsify

  1. Scrape the outside of the salsify and parboil until tender.

  2. Cut into slices and dip in beaten egg, then coat with fine bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in lard until golden brown.

  4. Alternatively, cook the sliced salsify in water until tender.

Make the cream sauce

  1. In a separate pot, mix the milk with flour, season with butter, pepper, and salt, and bring to a boil.

  2. Pour the milk mixture over the toasted bread or serve with crackers like oyster soup.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Salsify
Provides the main body and a mild, oyster-like flavour that carries the dish.
Beaten egg
Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs adhere to the salsify slices.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when fried.
Rich milk
Makes up the creamy sauce and adds moisture and richness.
Flour
Thickens the milk so the sauce becomes smooth and body-rich.

The step that matters

Frying until golden brown. Frying in lard browns the bread crumb coating through Maillard browning; if the oil is too cool the crumbs absorb grease and turn soggy, while overheating burns them before the salsify is heated through.

“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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