Skip to main content
Main

Turnip Soup

A baked turnip soup with bechamel sauce and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Turnip Soup

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 ↓

Turnip Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a sharp oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the turnips

  1. Peel and slice the turnips.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Moisten with a little stock and cook until tender.

  4. Drain thoroughly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Arrange the slices or puree in a well-buttered baking dish.

  2. Cover with a well-reduced Bechamel sauce.

  3. Sprinkle the surface with fine breadcrumbs and add tiny bits of butter.

  4. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes to brown the top.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + buttertop 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 main body of the dish, becoming soft and tender when cooked.
Bechamel sauce
Adds a creamy, moist layer that coats the turnips and keeps them from drying out.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown during baking.
Fine breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on the surface as they toast in the oven.

The step that matters

Drain thoroughly. Excess liquid left on the turnips would thin the Bechamel and make the baked dish watery, so the layers would not set cleanly.

Swap the turnip

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, sauce. 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.

More turnip soup recipes

Carrot 7 See all 93 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes