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Roots, Macedoine of

A mixed root vegetable dish simmered with butter, sugar, and béchamel, finished with an egg yolk and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Roots, Macedoine of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Peel the button onions and leave them whole.

  2. Scrape and clean the carrots, then pare off the outer red part and cut the parings into pea-sized bits. Do the same with the turnips.

  3. Stew the carrots in water for 10-15 minutes until tender.

Make the macédoine

  1. In a pan, fry the onions and turnips in butter with the sugar until glazed but not burned.

  2. Add the stewed carrots and toss all the vegetables together.

  3. Stir in the Bechamel sauce and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Cook until the sauce thickens and reduces.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg yolk with the cream and stir it in just before serving, ensuring the heat is off to prevent curdling.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the vegetables and helps them brown lightly while glazing.
Bechamel sauce
Provides a creamy base that coats the vegetables and thickens as it reduces.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and thickens the sauce gently when heated without boiling.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the sauce's texture.
Sugar
Caramelizes on the onions and turnips, adding sweetness and golden colour.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream. Egg yolk proteins coagulate and curdle when overheated, so the mixture must be stirred in off the heat. Gentle warming thickens it smoothly instead of producing grainy lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, butter, sugar, sauce, pepper, egg):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, butter, sugar, sauce, pepper, egg. 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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