Skip to main content
Main

Summer Squashes

A dish of boiled summer squash served with butter, pepper, sea salt, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Summer Squashes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the squash

  1. Cook the summer squashes whole until tender.

  2. If large, remove the skin and seeds.

  3. Drain and press out excess water using a plate.

Finish the dish

  1. In a stew-pan, season the squashes with butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of cream and mix well.

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

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

  3. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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 squashes
Form the main body of the dish; pressing out water keeps the purée from turning watery.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the squash.
Cream
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the squash into a smooth texture.

The step that matters

Drain and press out excess water. Summer squash holds a lot of water. If it is not drained and pressed well, the finished dish will be thin and loose rather than creamy and thick.

“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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes