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Turnips, Puree of

A smooth puree of boiled turnips thickened with flour, butter, and cream, seasoned with white pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,874 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Turnips, Puree of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turnips

  1. Pare and wash the turnips.

  2. Split the turnips into halves or quarters.

  3. Boil the turnips until very tender.

  4. Press out the water.

Make the puree

  1. Pass the turnips through a fine sieve.

  2. Return the sieved turnips to the saucepan.

  3. Dredge flour over the turnips.

  4. Add white pepper, salt, butter, sugar, and cream or milk.

  5. Stir over low heat until the mixture is dry and stiff.

Serve

  1. Serve the puree in the center of a dish.

  2. Arrange cutlets around it.

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. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 bulk of the puree, providing the body and mild sweetness once cooked and sieved.
Flour
Absorbs excess moisture and helps the puree thicken and hold its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and rich flavor.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the texture of the puree.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until dry and stiff. Evaporating surplus water concentrates the puree and lets it hold shape. Low heat reduces the risk of scorching or curdling the dairy while the moisture leaves.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, flour, butter, sugar, cream. 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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