Name: To Boil Parsnips
Ingredients: parsnips; coarse sea salt; cream; butter; fresh mint

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Boil Parsnips

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the parsnips well and boil them until soft.
Remove the skin and beat the parsnips in a bowl with a little coarse sea salt.
Add a little cream and a lump of butter, then mix well.
Transfer the mixture to a saucepan and cook until it resembles a light custard pudding.
Serve on a plate, garnished with chopped mint around the edge.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Parsnip + minttop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together38 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsnip + buttertop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,051 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).
Parsnip + creamtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together325 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Butter + minttop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,559 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).