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Stewed Parsnips

A simple stew of parsnips simmered with butter, salt, pepper, milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Stewed Parsnips

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Scrape the parsnips and slice them crosswise.

  2. Cook the parsnips in just enough water to prevent burning.

Finish

  1. When the water is almost gone, add butter, coarse sea salt, black pepper, and enough milk to cover the parsnips.

  2. Thicken the mixture with a little flour.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Parsnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together669 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsnip + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Parsnips
Provide the main body and sweet, earthy flavor of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the stewed vegetables.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid that the parsnips simmer in and that thickens.
Flour
Thickens the milky liquid into a sauce that coats the parsnips.

The step that matters

Cooking the parsnips in just enough water. Too little water lets the parsnips scorch before they soften, while too much dilutes the flavor and delays thickening. Watching the level as it drops keeps the pan from burning.

Swap the parsnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, milk, flour):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, milk, flour. 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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