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Puree Op Turnips, with Cream

A creamy puree made from young white turnips, butter, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Puree Op Turnips, with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turnips

  1. Prepare the turnips by peeling and slicing them, then parboil until nearly tender.

  2. Drain the turnips and place them in a saucepan with butter.

Make the puree

  1. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and a pinch of sugar, then cover and cook until moisture is nearly reduced.

  2. Add ½ cup of cream and mix well, then rub through a fine sieve.

  3. Put the puree back in a saucepan and reduce to the proper consistency while stirring.

  4. Before serving, stir in 1 tablespoon of butter.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Turnip + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Young white turnips
Form the bulk of the puree, providing the main body and flavor once cooked and sieved.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier texture to the puree.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a glossy finish to the puree.

The step that matters

Reducing the puree to the proper consistency. Stirring while reducing keeps the puree from scorching on the bottom of the pan. Cooking off excess moisture controls thickness, so the puree holds its shape on the plate rather than running.

Swap the turnip

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, nutmeg, cream, 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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