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Puree of Turnips

A smooth puree made from boiled turnips, onion, carrot, milk, butter, mace, egg yolks, and cream, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Puree of Turnips

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Peel the turnips, onion, and carrot.

  2. Slice the turnips, onion, and carrot.

  3. Cover the vegetables with boiling water.

  4. Cook the vegetables until tender.

  5. Mash the vegetables in the water.

  6. Press the mash through a fine sieve.

Finish the puree

  1. Heat 1 pint of boiling milk in a separate pot.

  2. Return the puree to the heat.

  3. Stir in 2 tablespoons of butter and a small pinch of mace.

  4. Beat the egg yolks with 2 tablespoons of cream.

  5. Stir the egg and cream mixture into the milk off the heat.

  6. Remove the puree from the heat.

  7. Mix in the egg and milk mixture.

  8. Season with salt to taste and pepper to taste.

  9. Serve.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Young turnips
Form the main body of the puree, giving it its bulk and mild sweet flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the puree.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the puree gently as they cook, giving it a smooth, velvety body.
Milk
Loosens the puree and adds creaminess and body.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, smoothing the texture of the puree.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg and cream mixture into the milk off the heat. Egg yolks thicken and can scramble if they get too hot. Adding them off the heat, and keeping the puree from boiling after, lets them set into a smooth, silky texture rather than curdling.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, onion, carrot, milk, butter, egg, cream):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, onion, carrot, milk, butter, egg, 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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