Why it works: Turnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Stuffed Turnips
Ingredients
Directions
Select turnips of uniform size and cut out the center.
Cook the turnips in boiling salted water until tender.
Fill the turnips with one of the following mixtures: creamed peas, pea puree, chopped carrots and string beans seasoned with cream, salt, and pepper, or a puree of chestnuts or creamed mushrooms.
Garnish the top with a slice of truffle.
Serve hot as a vegetable or as a garnish for beef fillet or crown roast.
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 + carrottop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Turnip + chestnuttop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together46 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Beans + chestnuttop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together56 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Turnip + beanstop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together400 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Carrot + beanstop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,443 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the peas
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, cream, pepper, truffle, carrot, beans, chestnut):
- Lentilsfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Chickpeafits better
- Peasthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, cream, pepper, truffle, carrot, beans, chestnut. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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