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Turnip Soup

A veal-based soup with turnips, herbs, mace, and a creamy thickening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Turnip Soup

Why it works: Onion and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,585 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Turnip Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Remove all the meat from the knuckle of veal for cutlets.

  2. In a pot, combine the veal, onion, herbs, mace, and water.

  3. Cover and simmer on low heat for 4-5 hours.

  4. Strain the broth and refrigerate overnight.

  5. Skim off the fat and sediment from the broth.

Finish the soup

  1. In a pot, simmer the broth with the diced turnips until tender, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  2. Mix the flour with the cream and butter until smooth.

  3. Add the mixture to the soup and let it simmer until thickened.

  4. Soak the small roll in the soup until wet through 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Veal knuckle
Gives the broth its meaty body and savoury flavour as it simmers.
Turnips
Provide the main vegetable body and mild sweetness once cooked until tender.
Flour
Thickens the cream and butter so the soup becomes smoothly thickened.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the thickened soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour into the soup.
Small roll of bread
Soaks up soup and adds body, softening into the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth after refrigerating. Chilling lets fat solidify on the surface and sediment settle, so removing them gives a clearer, cleaner-tasting broth before the cream and flour are added.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, turnip, pepper, flour, cream, walnut):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, turnip, pepper, flour, cream, walnut. 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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