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Mutton with Turnips

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 ↓

Mutton with Turnips

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the turnips lengthwise into narrow strips.

  2. Heat the frying fat or butter in a kettle.

  3. Add sugar and brown it while stirring.

  4. Drop in the turnips, add salt, and ½ cup of stock.

  5. Let it boil for a moment.

  6. Sprinkle flour over it, stir thoroughly, and add more stock or water if needed.

  7. Add the meat and cook for 10 minutes.

  8. Place the covered kettle in the Caloric for 1.5 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, meat, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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