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Peas in Turnip Cups

Turnip cups filled with a buttered milk sauce and peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Peas in Turnip Cups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turnips

  1. Steam the small white turnips until tender.

  2. Hollow out the centers and cut the edges into points.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add the milk, stirring until smooth and thickened.

  3. Season with salt and mix in the heated peas.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill the hollowed turnips with the pea mixture.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Turnip + peastop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,350 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Small white turnips
Form the edible cups that hold the filling.
Butter
Fat that combines with flour to form the roux base.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked in the roux.
Milk
Liquid that forms the body of the creamy sauce.
Cooked peas
Provide the filling, adding sweetness and color to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the milk into the roux. Adding milk gradually while stirring keeps the starch granules dispersed, so the sauce becomes smooth instead of lumpy. Thickening happens as the starch heats in the liquid.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, butter, flour, milk):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, butter, flour, milk. 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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