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Turnips Au Gratin

A baked dish of boiled turnips in a creamy sauce topped with bread crumbs and drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Turnips Au Gratin

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the turnips

  1. Peel and dice the turnips.

  2. Cook the diced turnips in boiling salted water until tender.

  3. Drain the cooked turnips.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat 1 pint of milk in a saucepan.

  2. Whisk in 1 tablespoon of flour and 1 tablespoon of butter until smooth.

  3. Season the sauce with ½ teaspoon salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mix the cooked turnips with the cream sauce, minced onion, and chopped parsley.

  2. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a greased baking dish.

  4. Cover the dish with 1 cup of bread crumbs and dot with bits of drippings.

  5. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until brown.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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, becoming tender and soft when cooked.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream sauce, giving the gratin its creamy moisture.
Flour
Thickens the milk with butter into a smooth sauce that binds the turnips.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the hot oven.
Drippings
Add fat to the topping, helping it brown and adding savory flavor.

The step that matters

Whisk the flour and butter into the milk until smooth. Flour must be fully dispersed in the warm milk, otherwise it clumps instead of thickening evenly into a smooth sauce that binds the turnips.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, parsley, pepper, bread, milk, flour, butter):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, parsley, pepper, bread, milk, flour, 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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