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White Fricasce of Skirrets or Parsnips

A white fricassee made with skirrets or parsnips, milk, butter, spices, onions, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

White Fricasce of Skirrets or Parsnips

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil, blanch, and skin the skirrets or parsnips, then cut them into 1‑inch pieces.

  2. Place them in a saucepan and cover with milk.

Cook

  1. Add butter, white pepper, pounded mace, and whole onions.

  2. Boil on low heat.

  3. Thicken with egg yolks without boiling again.

  4. Remove the onions 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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Parsnip + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,054 recipes

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

  3. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Mace + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Skirrets or parsnips
Form the main body of the dish and give it its sweet, earthy flavour.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that cooks the vegetables and becomes the sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milky liquid into a smooth, creamy sauce without curdling.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken with egg yolks without boiling again. Egg yolks set at around 70°C and curdle if the mixture boils, so the sauce turns grainy. Remove it from heat before stirring in the yolks and keep it warm but not boiling.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsnip, milk, butter, mace, onion, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsnip, milk, butter, mace, onion, egg. 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.

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