Name: Turnips a LA Poulette
Ingredients: 1 pound young turnips; Salt; 1 ounce butter; 1.5 ounces flour; ¾ pint vegetable stock; 1 tablespoon castor sugar; 1 egg yolk; 1 small piece of butter; Pepper

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 ↓

Turnips a LA Poulette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turnips

Peel and wash the turnips.
Trim the turnips into olive or pear shapes.
Place the turnips in cold salted water.
Bring the water to a boil.
Drain the turnips.
Rinse the turnips in cold water.
Dry the turnips with a clean napkin.

Make the sauce

Melt the butter.
Whisk in the flour.
Gradually add the vegetable stock.
Add the turnips to the sauce.
Cook gently for 20-25 minutes until tender.
Remove the turnips from the sauce.
Keep the turnips warm.
Add the castor sugar to the sauce.
Bring the sauce to a boil.
Stir in the egg yolk.
Stir in the small pieces of butter without letting the sauce re-boil.
Season the sauce with pepper and salt.

Serve

Pour the sauce over the turnips.
Serve hot.

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.

Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,874 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,252 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 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 dish's main body and become tender during the gentle simmer in the sauce.
Flour: Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth, body-giving sauce.
Egg yolk: Enriches and thickens the sauce, giving it a rich, velvety texture.
Butter: Adds richness and a glossy finish to the sauce.
Vegetable stock: Forms the liquid base of the sauce that the flour thickens.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolk and butter without re-boiling the sauce. Egg yolk thickens when gently heated but curdles and turns grainy if it boils. Keeping the sauce below boiling after adding the yolk preserves its smooth, velvety texture.

Swap the turnip

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

Capsicumfits better
Chivefits better
Shallotfits better
Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, egg, 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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Turnips a LA Poulette