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To Stew Turnip

A stew of turnips cooked with butter, sugar, salt, pepper, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,874 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Stew Turnip

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare, halve, and slice the turnips using a slaw cutter.

  2. Boil the turnips in clear water until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the butter, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  2. Stir in flour and cream to thicken, similar to peas.

  3. Serve in sauce dishes.

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 + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Turnips
Form the main body of the stew and soften to a tender bite when boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the stew a smoother mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the mild bitterness of turnips.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the stew body.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the thickened sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in flour and cream to thicken. Flour needs to be heated in liquid to thicken it, and cream can curdle or split if overheated. Stir steadily and keep the heat moderate so the sauce turns smooth rather than lumpy or grainy.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, pepper, flour, cream. 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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