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Stewed Turnips, Convent Style

A stew of turnips cooked with broth, marrow, butter, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Turnips, Convent Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare and cut the turnips into quarters, then trim the edges.

  2. Parboil the turnips for 5 minutes and drain them.

Stew

  1. In a saucepan, combine the turnips, chicken broth, salt, sugar, and marrow.

  2. Cover and cook until the broth is reduced by three-quarters.

  3. Remove from heat and add butter and cream.

  4. Dilute the egg yolks in the mixture and toss until the butter melts.

  5. Serve immediately; do not keep on the fire after adding the eggs.

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

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Turnips
Form the main body of the dish and absorb the flavour of the broth as they stew.
Chicken broth
Provides the liquid that cooks the turnips and reduces to a savoury coating.
Marrow
Adds richness and fat that enriches the broth as it cooks down.
Butter
Adds fat and smoothness to the reduced liquid, giving a glossy finish.
Cream
Adds richness and body, thickening the sauce gently when combined with the eggs.
Egg yolks
Thicken the warm mixture into a silky, custard-like sauce when heated gently.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, and if the mixture boils after they go in, they can scramble and turn grainy. Removing it from the fire first keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the turnip

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, sugar, butter, cream, 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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