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Scalloped Turnips and Cheese

A baked dish of parboiled turnip cubes layered with buttered crumbs, white sauce, bread crumbs, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scalloped Turnips and Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Parboil the turnips until tender, then drain and cut them into cubes.

Assemble

  1. In a buttered baking dish, place a layer of buttered crumbs.

  2. Add the turnip cubes on top of the crumbs.

  3. Cover the turnips with white sauce.

  4. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and grated cheese.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Turnip + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together831 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

White turnips
Form the bulk of the dish, giving a tender, mildly sweet body once cooked.
White sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy texture that keeps the turnips from drying out.
Grated cheese
Melts into the topping and browns, adding savory flavor and a golden crust.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browning topping that contrasts with the soft turnips beneath.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumbs brown in the baking dish.

The step that matters

Parboil the turnips until tender. Turnips that are undercooked stay firm and bitter-tasting, while overcooked ones turn mushy and release excess water into the sauce. Tender but still holding their shape gives the best texture after baking.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, cheese, sauce):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, cheese, sauce. 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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