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Stewed Salsify with Cream Sauce

A dish of boiled salsify served in a rich cream sauce, finished with vinegar and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Stewed Salsify with Cream Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salsify

  1. Boil the salsify until tender, then cut it into 2-inch lengths.

Make the sauce

  1. Prepare a rich cream sauce.

  2. Alternatively, make a white sauce, adding a little vinegar, and lay the salsify in it.

Assemble and stew

  1. Dish the salsify and sprinkle a few drops of vinegar on each piece.

  2. Pour the cream sauce over the salsify.

  3. Set the dish over boiling water and stew for 10 to 15 minutes.

  4. Serve, garnished with finely-chopped parsley.

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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,064 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sauce + vinegartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,844 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Salsify
Is the main vegetable, becoming tender through boiling and gentle stewing.
Cream sauce
Adds richness and a smooth, moist coating to the salsify.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the mild, creamy flavours.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sauce, vinegar. 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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