Why it works: Turnip and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,100 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Turnips, Glazed, with Gravy
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pare, wash, and drain the turnips, then cut them into uniform slices or shape them into balls or pears.
Cook
In a deep saucepan, dissolve enough fresh butter to cover the bottom, then add the turnips and fry until browned.
Drain the butter, then pour in enough stock to cover the turnips and let them simmer gently until nearly tender.
Remove the lid, increase the heat, and boil the sauce quickly until it thickens.
Serve
Carefully take up the turnips, arrange them on a dish, and pour the gravy over them.
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.
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Turnip + buttertop 25% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,100 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
- Turnips
- Form the main body of the dish and soften into a tender, mild-flavoured vegetable as they simmer.
- Fresh butter
- Browns the turnips in the pan and adds richness and flavour to the glaze.
- Good stock
- Simmers the turnips until tender and reduces into the thickened gravy that coats them.
The step that matters
Boil the sauce quickly until it thickens. Once the lid is off, a fast boil evaporates water and concentrates the stock and its starches, so the liquid thickens into a glaze. Boiling too gently leaves it thin, while boiling too long can over-reduce it into a sticky, salty residue.
“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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