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Farced Parsnips

Stuffed young parsnips with salt haddock, herbs, bread crumbs, butter, onions, and eggs, served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Farced Parsnips

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Parboil the young parsnips until tender.

  2. Scoop out the insides of the parsnips.

  3. Boil the salt haddock, then remove skin and bones.

  4. Pound the haddock flesh in a mortar.

  5. Mix in herbs, Nepaul pepper, bread crumbs, butter, and chopped onions.

  6. Bind the mixture with the beaten eggs and stuff the parsnips.

Cook and serve

  1. Steam the stuffed parsnips until cooked through.

  2. Serve on a dish with either brown sauce or white sauce.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Parsnip + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Parsnip + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Young parsnips
Hold the filling as a tender, edible vessel once parboiled and scooped out.
Salt haddock
Provides the main savoury, flaky filling base once boiled and pounded.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help give the filling body and a soft, cohesive texture.
Beaten eggs
Bind the filling so it holds together when stuffed and steamed.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a softer mouthfeel to the filling.

The step that matters

Bind the mixture with the beaten eggs and stuff the parsnips.. Eggs set when heated, so the filling must be evenly bound and not too wet. Otherwise it can loosen or crack during steaming and separate from the parsnip shells.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, veal, pepper, bread, butter, onion, 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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