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To Mash Turnips

A simple dish of boiled turnips mashed with butter, cream, and optional spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Mash Turnips

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turnips

  1. Split large turnips once or twice.

  2. Boil them until very tender.

  3. Press out the water using two trenchers or the back of a large plate.

  4. For a smoother texture, pass them through a colander or coarse sieve.

Mash and finish

  1. Place the turnips in a clean saucepan and stir over gentle heat until dry.

  2. Add salt, butter, and cream or milk.

  3. Optionally, add white pepper or cayenne.

  4. Simmer and stir for 5 to 6 minutes until all liquid is absorbed.

  5. Serve hot.

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

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

  2. Turnip + white peppertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together275 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Cream + white peppertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,439 recipes
  4. Turnip + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Turnip + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together797 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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 dish, giving the mash its body and mild sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the mash a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and creaminess so the mash becomes soft and spreadable.

The step that matters

Pressing out the water. Turnips hold a lot of water, and any left behind dilutes the flavour and makes the mash loose. Pressing and then stirring over gentle heat to dry them lets the cream and butter give a thick, rich result.

Swap the white pepper

The recipe marks white pepper as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, butter, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, butter, 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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