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Baked Summer Squash and Onions

A baked dish of sliced summer squash and onions, seasoned with butter, salt, pepper, and cream.

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 ↓

Baked Summer Squash and Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Slice the summer squash and remove seeds if large.

Bake

  1. Layer the sliced squash and onion rings in a baking dish, dotting with butter, and seasoning with salt and pepper.

  2. Cover the dish and bake for 30 minutes.

  3. Uncover the dish, add cream, and bake until delicately brown, about 10 minutes.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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

Summer squash
Forms the bulk of the dish and softens into tender, moist pieces as it bakes.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory depth as it softens and cooks down.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the vegetables brown lightly on the surface.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture, and helps the top turn delicately brown.

The step that matters

Covering the dish for the first 30 minutes. Keeping the lid on traps steam, so the squash and onion cook through and soften evenly. Uncovering too early can dry the vegetables before they are tender, and the browning should only come at the end.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, cream):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, cream. 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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