Why it works: Turnip and artichoke match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 140 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Vegetable Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Scald and blanch the broad beans.
Cut the young carrots, turnips, artichoke bottoms, mushrooms, peas, onions, lettuce, parsley, and celery.
Make a stew with the vegetables and veal gravy.
Prepare a pie crust and line the edge of a dish.
Place a cup upside down in the crust to prevent sinking.
Bake the crust at 400°F (200°C) until golden.
Remove the cup, open the lid, and pour in the vegetable stew.
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.
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Turnip + artichoketop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together140 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Artichoke + lettucetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together101 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together526 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Beans + lettucetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together500 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
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, carrot, turnip, artichoke, mushroom, peas, lettuce):
- Beetrootfits better
- Spinachfits better
- Leekfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beans, carrot, turnip, artichoke, mushroom, peas, lettuce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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