Name: Vegetable Scoops
Ingredients: 2 carrots, cut into ¼ inch pieces; 2 turnips, cut into ¼ inch pieces; 1 head of cauliflower, divided into small pieces; 1 cup French beans, cut into small pieces; Salt, to taste; 1 cup good white sauce

Why it works: Turnip and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 286 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetable Scoops

Ingredients

2 carrots, cut into ¼ inch pieces
2 turnips, cut into ¼ inch pieces
1 head of cauliflower, divided into small pieces
1 cup French beans, cut into small pieces
Salt, to taste
1 cup good white sauce

Directions

Cook the vegetables

Cook the carrots and turnips in plenty of salted water until tender, then drain and dry them.
Cook the cauliflower and French beans separately in salted water until tender, then drain and dry them.

Combine and serve

In a saucepan, combine the cooked vegetables with enough white sauce to moisten them.
Toss the vegetables lightly in the sauce without breaking them.
Heat the mixture until hot and serve immediately.

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 + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together286 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together290 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Turnip + beanstop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together400 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + beanstop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,443 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Carrots: Hold their shape when cooked and add sweetness and colour to the dish.
Turnips: Add firm texture and a mild, slightly peppery sweetness.
Cauliflower: Adds bulk and a soft, tender texture that absorbs the sauce.
French beans: Add a crisp-tender bite and fresh, green flavour.
White sauce: Moistens the vegetables and binds them with a creamy, smooth coating.

The step that matters

Drain and dry the vegetables before saucing. Surface water thins the white sauce and dilutes its flavour, so the vegetables should be well drained and dried before they are combined with it.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, cauliflower, beans, sauce):

Beetrootfits better
Broccolifits better
Lettucefits better
Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, cauliflower, beans, 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.

Carrot Soup134 recipes

Turnip Soup43 recipes

Cauliflower Soup28 recipes

Cream of Cauliflower Soup22 recipes

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Vegetable Scoops