Name: Turnips in White Sauce
Ingredients: 4 medium turnips; 2 tablespoons butter; ¼ teaspoon salt; 2 cups hot white sauce

Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Turnips in White Sauce

Ingredients

4 medium turnips
2 tablespoons butter
¼ teaspoon salt
2 cups hot white sauce

Directions

Prepare

Peel and wash the turnips, then cut them into desired shapes.

Cook

In a saucepan, bring water to a boil and add the turnips, butter, and salt.
Boil the turnips until tender, about 15-20 minutes.

Serve

Drain the turnips in a colander and place them on a hot dish.
Pour the hot white sauce over the turnips and serve.

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.

Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Turnip + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together943 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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, softening into a tender vegetable when boiled.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavour to the turnips.
White sauce: Adds moisture and a creamy coating that carries the flavour of the dish.