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Salad

Turnip Slaw

A salad of mashed turnips mixed with an egg, sugar, butter, salt, pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,252 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Turnip Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turnips

  1. Peel and slice the turnips.

  2. Cook the turnips until tender, then drain and mash them.

Make the dressing and combine

  1. In a bowl, mix the beaten egg, sugar, butter, salt, pepper, and vinegar.

  2. Combine the dressing with the mashed turnips and bring to a boil.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Egg + buttertop 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
Provide the bulk and soft, mashable texture of the slaw.
Egg
Thickens the dressing as its proteins set with gentle heat, giving body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Supplies acidity that gives the slaw its sharp, tangy flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Combine the dressing with the mashed turnips and bring to a boil.. The beaten egg can curdle or scramble if it gets too hot too fast. Stirring constantly while heating lets the egg thicken the dressing evenly and keeps it smooth.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, pepper, vinegar. 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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