Why it works: Pumpkin and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,933 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Stewed Pumpkin
Ingredients
Directions
Peel and chop the pumpkin into pieces.
Cook the pumpkin in boiling water until tender.
Drain the pumpkin and mash it.
Season with coarse sea salt and butter to taste.
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.
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Pumpkin + buttertop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,933 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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