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Puree of Turnips

A smooth puree made from turnips, onion, carrot, butter, mace, egg yolks, cream, and milk, 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 and slice the turnips, onion, and carrot.

  2. Cover with boiling water and cook until tender.

  3. Mash the vegetables in the water and press through a fine sieve.

Finish the puree

  1. In a separate pot, heat 1 pint of boiling milk.

  2. Stir in 2 tablespoons of butter and a small pinch of mace into the puree.

  3. Beat 2 egg yolks with 2 tablespoons of cream, then stir into the hot milk.

  4. Remove the puree from the heat and mix in the egg and milk mixture.

  5. Season with salt and pepper to taste, then 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 flavour and smooth texture once pressed.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help thicken the puree as they set gently in the hot milk.
Butter
Adds fat for a silkier mouthfeel and rounder flavour.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the puree while adding body.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the hot milk. Egg yolks can scramble if they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Removing the puree from the heat before adding the egg mixture, and stirring constantly, helps them thicken smoothly instead of 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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