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Drink

Parsnip Wine

A fermented beverage made from boiled parsnips, sugar, yeast, and bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and bread work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 110 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Parsnip Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the parsnips

  1. Clean and remove any decayed parts from the parsnips, then quarter and cut them into 4-inch pieces.

  2. Boil the parsnips in 1 gallon of water until tender but not pulpy.

  3. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve into a tub, being careful not to bruise the roots.

Make the must

  1. Add ½ ounce of powdered white argol and stir for a few minutes.

  2. Introduce 3 pounds of loaf sugar and stir until dissolved.

  3. Let the liquid cool to about 85°F (29°C).

  4. Toast a thick slice of bread and moisten it with 2 tablespoons of fresh yeast.

  5. Add the yeast bread to the liquid, cover with a flannel, and stir daily until fermentation subsides.

Ferment and transfer

  1. Keep the vessel in a room or cellar at 50-55°F (10-13°C) and skim off the yeast as it forms.

  2. After 10 days to 2 weeks, transfer the wine to a cask.

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 + breadtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together110 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Parsnip + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together190 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + breadtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,638 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 flavour and the sugars that the liquid carries into fermentation.
Loaf sugar
Supplies the sugar that yeast converts into alcohol during fermentation.
Fresh yeast
Starts fermentation by converting sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Powdered white argol
Adds tartaric acid, contributing acidity and helping balance the sweetness of the wine.

The step that matters

Let the liquid cool to about 85°F (29°C) before adding the yeast bread. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, so the must must be cooled before the yeast is added. Starting fermentation at a moderate temperature keeps the yeast active.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, bread. 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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