Why it works: Turnip and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,330 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Browned Turnips
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pare and slice the turnips crosswise.
Boil the turnips for 20 minutes and drain in a colander.
Brown the turnips
Heat the drippings in a frying pan.
Dust the turnips with sugar and add them to the hot fat.
Turn the slices carefully until they are nicely browned.
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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Turnip + sugartop 29% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,330 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Turnips
- Form the body of the dish, cooked until tender and then browned on the surface.
- Drippings
- Fat that conducts heat to the turnip surfaces and carries flavor while they brown.
- Sugar
- Caramelizes in the hot fat, adding sweetness and deeper browning to the surface.
The step that matters
Turn the slices carefully in the hot fat. Browning happens where the surface is dry and hot, and sugar caramelizes in the fat. Fat that is not hot enough steams the slices instead of browning them. Careful turning keeps the slices intact and lets each face brown evenly.
“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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