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Stewed Turnips, Spanish Style

Stewed turnips cooked with butter, broth, Espagnole sauce, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Turnips, Spanish Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turnips

  1. Peel the turnips and cut them into equal sizes.

  2. Parboil the turnips for 3 minutes, then drain.

Cook the turnips

  1. In a saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and lightly fry the turnips.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and a pinch of sugar.

  3. Moisten with white broth and finish cooking until tender.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Reduce the broth to a light glaze and stir in 2 tablespoons of Espagnole sauce.

  2. Remove from heat, add a piece of butter, and stir until melted.

  3. Add finely chopped parsley and pour the sauce over the turnips before serving.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Small young turnips
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and absorbing the glaze as they simmer.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish, and helps the turnips brown lightly when fried.
White broth
Provides moisture for finishing the turnips and reduces to a light glaze that coats them.
Espagnole sauce
Adds body and savory depth to the reduced broth, thickening the glaze.

The step that matters

Reducing the broth to a light glaze. If the broth is reduced too far it becomes sticky and salty, and if not reduced enough it stays thin and runs off the turnips. Watching the liquid as it thickens lets the sauce coat the vegetables evenly.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, sugar, sauce, parsley. 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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