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Mashed Turnips

Mashed turnips made with flour, butter, cream, and salt, optionally sweetened with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Mashed Turnips

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turnips

  1. Pare and boil the turnips until three-quarters done.

  2. Squeeze them between two plates to remove excess water.

Finish the mash

  1. Place them in a saucepan and add flour, fresh butter, cream, and coarse sea salt, a little of each.

  2. Mix well over low heat and stew gently for 15 minutes.

  3. To keep them white, avoid overcooking; add powdered sugar if desired.

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

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter 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 main body of the mash, with a mild, slightly sweet flavor when cooked.
Flour
Thickens the mash and helps it hold together as it stews.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the mash's texture.

The step that matters

Avoid overcooking the turnips. Overcooked turnips become darker and more bitter, and they release more water, which thins the mash and dulls its white color. Stopping at three-quarters done keeps the flesh firm enough to absorb the butter and cream during the gentle stew.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cream, sugar. 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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