Name: Excellent Turnip, or Artichoke Sauce for Boiled Meat
Ingredients: finely-grained mild turnips; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour; 2 cups thin cream (or 1⅓ cups milk mixed with ⅔ cup cream); ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; cayenne pepper (optional)

Why it works: Turnip and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,874 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Excellent Turnip, or Artichoke Sauce for Boiled Meat

Ingredients

finely-grained mild turnips
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 cups thin cream (or 1⅓ cups milk mixed with ⅔ cup cream)
½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
cayenne pepper (optional)

Directions

Prepare the turnips

Peel, slice, and boil the turnips until tender.
Drain the water and pass the turnips through a sieve.

Make the sauce

In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.
Stir in the flour until smooth.
Gradually add the cream while stirring.
Add the turnips and salt.
Mix well until hot.

Serve

Pour the sauce over boiled mutton, veal, lamb, or poultry.

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.

Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,874 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,252 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Turnips: Provide the main body and mild flavour of the sauce once mashed smooth.
Butter: Forms the fat base for the roux and adds richness to the sauce.
All-purpose flour: Cooked with butter to form a roux that thickens the sauce.
Thin cream: Adds richness and moisture, giving the sauce a smooth, pourable body.

The step that matters

Gradually add the cream while stirring. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour roux smooth. Adding it all at once can trap lumps of starch that are hard to whisk out.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cream, pepper):

Spinachfits better
Leekfits better
Potatofits better
Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, pepper. 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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Excellent Turnip, or Artichoke Sauce for Boiled Meat