Why it works: Turnip and mutton are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,558 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓
Turnips Baked with Mutton
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the turnips
Boil the turnips until almost tender. If very large, cut them into quarters.
Drain the turnips and place them in a pan with a roasting leg of mutton about 45 minutes before the mutton is done.
Bake and serve
Baste the turnips frequently while they bake until well browned and very tender.
Serve the turnips around the mutton.
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 + muttontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,558 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
- Boiling softens them, and baking in the mutton pan browns their surfaces and makes them very tender.
- Leg of mutton
- Its fat and drippings baste the turnips, adding richness and flavour as they bake.
The step that matters
Baste the turnips frequently while they bake. Basting keeps the surfaces moist and carries drippings over them, so they brown evenly instead of drying or scorching before they become tender.
“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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