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Stuffed Vegetable Marrow

A baked marrow stuffed with cold meat, stale bread, onions, herbs, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffed Vegetable Marrow

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Peel the marrow, divide it lengthwise, and remove the seeds.

  2. Chop the meat.

  3. Soak and finely beat the bread.

  4. Boil and chop the onions.

  5. Rub the sage.

  6. Mix all the ingredients together.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill each half of the marrow with the mixture.

  2. Dredge the filled marrow with flour, salt, and pepper.

  3. Melt the dripping in a baking tin.

  4. Place the filled marrow in the tin.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Marrow
Forms the edible shell that holds the filling and softens as it bakes.
Stale bread
Soaks up moisture and binds the filling so it holds together when baked.
Cold meat
Provides the savoury body of the filling.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the filling.
Dripping
Adds fat that helps the flour-dredged surface brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Dredging the filled marrow with flour. A thin, even coating of flour helps the surface brown and form a crisp crust, while too much can turn pasty or raw-tasting under the heat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, bread, sage, parsley, thyme, flour, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, sage, parsley, thyme, flour, pepper. 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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