Why it works: Parsnip and sugar work together. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 190 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Parsnip Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the liquid
Clean and quarter the parsnips.
Boil the parsnips in water until tender, then drain through a sieve without bruising them.
Pour the liquid into a tub and add 3 pounds of sugar and ½ ounce of crude tartar for each gallon.
Ferment and age
Let the mixture cool, then add the yeast.
Allow it to stand for 4 days in a warm room at 60°F (15°C).
When fermentation subsides, seal the cask and let it stand for 12 months before bottling.
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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Parsnip + sugartop 24% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together190 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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, flavor, and fermentable sugars for the wine.
- Lump sugar
- Supplies the sugar that yeast converts to alcohol during fermentation.
- Crude tartar
- Adds acidity, which supports fermentation and gives a crisp, balanced flavor.
- Yeast
- Converts sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
The step that matters
Let the mixture cool before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed or weakened by very hot liquid, so the mixture must be cool enough that the yeast can survive and start fermenting.
“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.
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