Name: Turnip Salad or Spring Greens
Ingredients: turnip greens; salt pork or bacon; eggs

Why it works: Turnip and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,358 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Turnip Salad or Spring Greens

Ingredients

turnip greens
salt pork or bacon
eggs

Directions

Pick and wash the turnip greens to remove dust and insects, then soak them in cold water.
Boil a piece of salt pork or bacon in a pot of water.
Remove the bacon and add the greens to the boiling water.
Return the bacon to the pot and boil for 20 to 25 minutes.
Use a skimmer to remove the greens from the pot and place them in a deep dish.
Top the greens with a few slices of bacon and cover with poached eggs.

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 + porktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,358 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Pork + eggtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,387 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Turnip + eggtop 36% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,077 recipes

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