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Turnips with Pork

A simple stew of pork and turnips simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Turnips with Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the stew

  1. Boil the piece of pork for 1 hour.

  2. Peel and cut the turnips into cubes, then add them to the pot.

  3. Cook for another hour until the turnips are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Allow the water to reduce to a rich gravy.

  2. Season with salt and pepper 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. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pork + turniptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,358 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pork
Provides the main meat and flavors the cooking liquid as it simmers.
Turnips
Soften during long cooking and add body and mild sweetness to the stew.

The step that matters

Reducing the water to a gravy. Simmering uncovered concentrates the flavors of the pork and cooking liquid. Reducing too long can scorch the bottom of the pot or make the gravy overly thick, so check it as it thickens.

Swap the turnip

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper. 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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