Name: Turnips and Carrots in White Sauce
Ingredients: 1½ cups turnips, cut into ½ inch cubes; 1 cup carrots, cut into ½ inch cubes; Salt, to taste; 1 cup White Sauce

Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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 ↓

Turnips and Carrots in White Sauce

Ingredients

1½ cups turnips, cut into ½ inch cubes
1 cup carrots, cut into ½ inch cubes
Salt, to taste
1 cup White Sauce

Directions

Prepare

Wash, peel, and cut the turnips into ½ inch cubes.
Wash, scrape, and cut the carrots into ½ inch cubes.

Cook and serve

Cook the turnips and carrots in boiling salted water until soft.
Drain the vegetables and add the white sauce.

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.

Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together943 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Carrot + saucetop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,509 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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, becoming soft and tender when cooked.
Carrots: Add body, mild sweetness and color alongside the turnips.
White sauce: Adds creamy moisture and coats the cooked vegetables.