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Turnips, Glaces

Glazed turnips cooked in broth, sugar, and Spanish sauce, finished with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,147 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Turnips, Glaces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turnips

  1. Select a few fine turnips and shape them like pears.

Glaze the turnips

  1. Stew the turnips in a small quantity of broth with a little sugar until the liquid reduces to a glaze.

  2. Once the turnips are evenly coated, place them on a serving dish.

Finish the sauce

  1. In the stewpan, add a spoonful of Spanish sauce to detach the remaining glaze.

  2. Add a small piece of butter (about 2 tablespoons) and mix it with the sauce.

  3. Season the sauce well and pour it over the turnips.

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. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Turnip + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Turnip + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sauce and butter 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

Turnips
Form the dish's main body, becoming tender while absorbing the glaze.
Broth
Cooks the turnips and reduces to a glossy, flavourful glaze.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the reduced liquid caramelise into a glaze.
Spanish sauce
Forms the body of the finishing sauce and carries the flavour of the glaze.
Butter
Adds richness and gloss, emulsifying into the sauce for a smooth finish.

The step that matters

Reducing the broth to a glaze. If the liquid reduces too far it scorches and turns bitter, while stopping too early leaves a thin, watery coating. Sugar browns quickly, so the turnips need steady attention and gentle heat until they are evenly coated.

Swap the turnip

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sauce, butter. 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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