Skip to main content
Side

Creamed Parsnips

Creamed parsnips are boiled parsnips coated in a butter, pepper, salt, parsley, and cream sauce.

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

Why it works: Parsnip and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 484 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Creamed Parsnips

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the parsnips

  1. Boil the parsnips until tender.

  2. Scrape and slice the parsnips lengthwise.

Make the creamed parsnips

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the parsnips, pepper, salt, and minced parsley to the saucepan.

  3. Shake until the mixture boils.

  4. In a small bowl, mix the cream or milk with the flour. Add the cream mixture to the saucepan. Boil once.

  5. Pour the sauce over the parsnips before serving.

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. Parsnip + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Parsnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together669 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Parsnip + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Parsnips
Provide the main body and sweet, earthy flavor of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and giving the sauce a silky mouthfeel.
Cream or milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and a smooth, creamy texture.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the cream as it boils, giving the sauce body so it clings to the parsnips.

The step that matters

Boil once after adding the cream mixture. Flour needs to reach a boil in the liquid to gelatinize its starch and thicken the sauce. Boiling too long or too hard can make dairy separate or scorch, so a single brief boil is enough.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, parsley, cream, flour. 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.

You might also like

Parsnip CroquettesParsnip Croquettes12 recipesEggplant CakesEggplant Cakes34 recipesEscalloped Tomatoes (Scalloped Tomatoes)Escalloped Tomatoes (Scalloped Tomatoes)25 recipesOnion PuddingOnion Pudding9 recipes