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Turnip Puree

A puree of boiled turnips, onion, celery, and corned beef liquor, finished with butter, flour, milk, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Turnip Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Dip out 1 quart of the corned beef liquor, cool, skim, and strain it through a thick cloth.

Make the puree

  1. Set the liquor over the fire with the turnips, onion, and celery; boil until soft.

  2. Rub the mixture through a colander back into the liquor.

  3. Season with pepper and parsley, then return to the fire.

  4. In another vessel, heat the milk with a pinch of baking soda.

  5. After the puree has cooked for 3 minutes, stir in the milk and pour into a tureen.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Turnips
Form the bulk of the puree, giving body and a soft, smooth texture when boiled and rubbed through.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing a smooth mouthfeel and flavour.
Flour
Thickens the puree, helping it hold a smooth, spoonable body.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the flavour and smoothing the texture.
Baking soda
Raises the pH of the milk, which can soften the vegetables and alter the colour slightly.

The step that matters

Stir in the milk at the right time. Adding milk after the puree has cooked briefly keeps it from curdling or separating under prolonged boiling, since dairy proteins can coagulate when heated hard for long.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turnip, celery, pepper, parsley, butter, flour):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, celery, pepper, parsley, butter, flour. 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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