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Parsnips, Stewed

Stewed parsnips simmered in a butter, flour, stock, milk sauce seasoned with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and nutmeg share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Parsnips, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the parsnips

  1. Boil the parsnips until tender, then drain and slice them into pieces about ½ inch thick and 3 inches long.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour and stock.

  2. Add the milk (or cream), salt, pepper, and nutmeg, stirring until the sauce is smooth and thick.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the sliced parsnips to the sauce and simmer for 5-6 minutes.

  2. Serve warm.

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. Parsnip + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together98 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Parsnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together669 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Parsnips
Provide the main vegetable body and mild sweetness of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, sliceable sauce as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and adds creaminess.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce smooth and thick. Flour must be cooked into the melted butter and whisked into liquid evenly, or it forms lumps. Stirring while the sauce heats lets starch granules swell and thicken it smoothly.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, pepper, 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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