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Scalloped Turnips

Scalloped turnips baked with butter, flour sauce, and Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,874 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Scalloped Turnips

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the turnips

  1. Slice the turnips.

  2. Stew the sliced turnips in water with a little butter and coarse sea salt until tender.

  3. Drain the liquid, reserving it for the sauce.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, combine the reserved liquid with 1 heaped teaspoon of flour and 1 heaped teaspoon of butter to make the sauce.

  2. Butter a baking dish.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer the sliced turnips in the dish, dusting with pepper and spreading some sauce over each layer.

  2. Continue layering until all turnips are used, then dust grated Parmesan cheese on top and add flakes of butter.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until light brown.

  4. Serve in the same dish.

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. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Turnips
Form the bulk of the dish and soften into a tender, layered body.
Flour
Thickens the reserved cooking liquid into a sauce that binds the layers.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and helps the top brown.
Grated parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the top brown during baking.

The step that matters

Make the sauce with the reserved liquid. Flour must be fully combined with the liquid and cooked until smooth and thickened. Lumps or raw flour taste pasty and will not bind the layers into a cohesive sauce.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, flour, parmesan cheese):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, flour, parmesan cheese. 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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