Why it works: Parsnip and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,051 recipes. Both carry beta-pinene, which smells pine, resin. The science ↓
Parsnips, Fried
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Scrape and wash the parsnips, then split them lengthwise in halves.
Boil the parsnips in salted water for about 2 hours or until very tender.
Drain the parsnips and let them cool slightly.
Fry and serve
In a large frying pan, heat the butter and lard until hot enough to brown.
Place the parsnips cut side down in the pan and brown them on both sides.
Keep the parsnips in the frying pan until ready to serve.
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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Parsnip + buttertop 25% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,051 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Parsnips
- Provide the bulk of the dish; boiling makes them tender enough to brown evenly.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavor and helps the parsnip surfaces brown in the pan.
- Lard
- Tolerates high heat well, helping the pan reach browning temperature and crisp the surface.
The step that matters
Brown the parsnips in hot fat. The pan must be hot enough for the fat to brown the parsnip surfaces. Cooking in fat that is too cool leaves them pale and greasy instead of golden.
“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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