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Stewed Turnips with Bechamel Sauce

A stew of diced turnips simmered in a creamy bechamel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Stewed Turnips with Bechamel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and boil

  1. Pare the turnips and cut them into half‑inch dice.

  2. Boil the turnips in water with 1 tablespoon of salt until they begin to soften.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt 1 ounce of butter over medium heat, then stir in 1 ounce of flour until it bubbles.

  2. Gradually add ½ pint of boiling water and ½ cup of milk, stirring continuously.

  3. Season the sauce with 1 teaspoon of salt, ¼ teaspoon of white pepper, and ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg.

Combine and serve

  1. Drain the turnips and add them to the sauce, simmer until tender, and serve.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Turnip + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 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
Form the main body of the stew, becoming tender as they simmer in the sauce.
Butter
Provides fat and richness, and cooks with the flour to form the base of the sauce.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells when heated with the liquid.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body to the bechamel sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling water and milk to the roux. Adding the liquid gradually while stirring keeps the flour dispersed so the sauce stays smooth instead of forming lumps. Heating the mixture lets the starch swell and thicken it.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, butter, milk, nutmeg. 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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