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Steamed Winter Squash

Steamed winter squash is cooked by steaming, then mashed and seasoned with butter and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Winter squash and butter work together. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 95 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steamed Winter Squash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the squash into pieces and remove the seeds and stringy portions.

  2. Pare the squash and place it in a strainer.

Cook and serve

  1. Steam over boiling water for 30 minutes or until soft.

  2. Mash the squash and season with butter and coarse sea salt.

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. Winter squash + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together95 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Winter squash
Forms the dish; steaming softens its flesh so it mashes into a smooth, tender purée.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel that balances the squash's mild flavour.

The step that matters

Steam until fully soft. Squash that is undercooked stays firm and fibrous, so it will not mash smoothly. Steam until a fork or knife slides through the flesh with no resistance before mashing.

“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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