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Vegetable Puree

A blended vegetable mixture made from carrots, turnips, onions, celery, leeks, lettuce, cabbage, butter, and water, served hot with bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetable Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash, scrape, and slice the carrots.

  2. Wash, peel, and slice the turnips and onions.

  3. Wash and quarter the celery and leeks.

  4. Wash and quarter the lettuce and cabbage.

Cook

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add all the vegetables.

  2. Cook the vegetables over medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Add 3 quarts of cold water, bring to a boil, skim the surface, then reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour.

Strain and serve

  1. Pass the contents through a fine sieve into a basin using a wooden spoon.

  2. Return the puree to the saucepan and warm it over low heat.

  3. Serve the puree in a hot soup tureen or basin, with toasted or fried bread cut into dice.

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 + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Provide sweetness and body to the puree as they soften during simmering.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and bulk, thickening the puree once cooked and sieved.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and aroma as they soften in the butter and water.
Leeks
Add a mild onion-like aroma and body to the strained puree.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor from the vegetables as they cook.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface after boiling. Foam and fine particles rise to the top when the liquid boils. Skimming them removes bitter or cloudy material, so the sieved puree tastes clean and looks smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, celery, leek, lettuce, cabbage, butter):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Endivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, leek, lettuce, cabbage, butter. 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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