Why it works: Parsnip and pork work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 306 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Stewed Parsnips
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the parsnips and cut each into four pieces.
Cook
Boil the parsnips in plenty of water until tender, about 20 minutes to 1 hour.
Drain the water and layer the salt pork in the bottom of a pot.
Add the parsnips back to the pot and fry until brown.
Serve
Serve the pork with the parsnips on a platter.
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.
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Parsnip + porktop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together306 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Parsnips
- Form the bulk of the dish, turning tender when boiled and browning when fried.
- Salt pork
- Adds fat and savory flavor as it renders into the pot and browns the parsnips.
The step that matters
Frying the parsnips until brown. Parsnips are already tender from boiling, so frying only needs enough heat to brown their surfaces. Drained, dry pieces brown better than wet ones, because surface water steams instead of letting the sugars caramelize.
“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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