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Turnips Au Gratin

A baked dish of sliced turnips in béchamel sauce topped with breadcrumbs.

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 ↓

Turnips Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and thinly slice the turnips.

  2. Wash and drain the turnips.

Cook the turnips

  1. Melt 2 oz of butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the turnips and stir over medium heat until tender.

  3. Prepare béchamel sauce and combine with the turnips.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer to a baking dish, top with breadcrumbs, and bake until golden brown.

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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Turnip + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Turnip + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 bulk of the dish and soften into a tender, mild base when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the turnips soften and brown lightly.
Bechamel sauce
Binds the turnips in a creamy layer that keeps them moist during baking.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Stirring the turnips until tender. Turnips must be fully softened before baking, because the oven only browns the top and will not cook dense, undercooked slices through in the time needed.

Swap the turnip

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, 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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