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Carrot and Turnip Mould

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip 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 ↓

Carrot and Turnip Mould

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the carrots in good stock until tender.

  2. Mash the carrots and pass them through a wire sieve.

  3. Add pepper, coarse sea salt, and a little butter to the mashed carrots.

  4. Place the carrot mixture into a border mold.

  5. Boil the turnips in milk until tender, then mash them.

  6. Add pepper, coarse sea salt, and some cream to the mashed turnips, beating thick over the fire.

  7. Turn the carrot mixture out of the mold and fill the center with the turnip puree, piling it high.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + turniptop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, pepper, butter, milk, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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