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To Mash Turnips

A dish of boiled turnips mashed with butter, cream, and seasonings, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 15 ingredients
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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 Mash Turnips

Ingredients

Directions

Mash the turnips

  1. Split the turnips once or twice if large after they are pared.

  2. Boil them until very tender.

  3. Press the water thoroughly from them with a couple of trenchers, or with the back of a large plate and one trencher.

  4. Pass them through a colander or coarse hair-sieve with a wooden spoon to ensure they are free from lumps; if they are quite young, they may be worked sufficiently smooth without this.

  5. Put them into a clean saucepan and stir them constantly for some minutes over a gentle fire, so they may be very dry.

  6. Add some salt, a bit of fresh butter, and a little cream, or in lieu of this new milk.

  7. Add a seasoning of white pepper or cayenne if desired.

  8. Continue to simmer and stir them for five or six minutes longer, or until they have absorbed all the liquid poured to them.

  9. Serve them hot.

Make the turnip balls with white sauce

  1. Cut some small finely-grained turnips into quarters, and pare them into balls, or into the shape of plums or pears of equal size.

  2. Arrange them evenly in a broad stewpan or saucepan.

  3. Cover them nearly with good veal broth, throw in a little salt, and a morsel of sugar.

  4. Boil them rather quickly until they are quite tender, but preserve them unbroken.

  5. Lift them out, draining them well from the broth.

  6. Add a cup of cream and a teaspoonful of arrow-root to the broth in which the turnips have stewed, to make the sauce.

  7. When it boils, stir in a small slice of butter and work it into the sauce if it is not sufficiently rich without.

  8. Dish them and pour over them some thick white sauce.

Stew the diced turnips

  1. Wash, wipe quite dry, and pare the turnips.

  2. Slice the turnips nearly half an inch thick, and divide them into dice.

  3. Dissolve an ounce of butter for each half-pound of the turnips.

  4. Put the turnips in as flat as they can be, and stew them very gently from three quarters of an hour to a full hour.

  5. Add a seasoning of salt and white pepper when they are half done.

  6. When thus prepared, dish them in the centre of fried or nicely broiled mutton cutlets, or serve them by themselves.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

165Calories
1 gProtein
17 gFat
3 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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 + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + white peppertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,439 recipes
  3. Butter + white peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Turnips (in the method)
Form the main bulk; mashing or dicing gives a soft, tender texture when cooked gently.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the mash and the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and softness, making the mash smoother and the sauce creamy.
Arrow-root
Thickens the cream and broth into a smooth sauce for the turnips.

The step that matters

Stir the mash over gentle heat until very dry. Pressing and stirring drive off surplus water, so the mash holds its shape and the butter and cream blend in rather than leaving it thin and watery.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Macefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter. 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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