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Stuffed Turnips

Turnips are peeled, boiled, hollowed, filled with a seasoned mash, and baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,252 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stuffed Turnips

Oven, in the book's wordsThe hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “the hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the turnips

  1. Peel and boil the turnips whole in slightly salted water until tender.

  2. Drain the water, slice a piece from the end of each turnip, and scrape out the center.

Fill and bake

  1. Mash the turnip centers and season with salt, pepper, butter, and the egg yolk.

  2. Fill the turnips with the mixture, replace the slice, and brush with butter.

  3. Place in a baking dish and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

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 + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Turnip + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Turnips
Form the edible shell that holds the filling and softens when boiled.
Egg yolk
Binds the mashed turnip filling so it holds its shape when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling and helps the outside brown.

The step that matters

Scraping out the centers. Leaving too little room in the shell makes the filling overflow, while cutting through the wall can cause the filling to leak during baking.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, egg. 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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