Name: Turnip Tops
Ingredients: Turnip tops; Coarse sea salt; Butter

Why it works: Turnip and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,100 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Turnip Tops

Ingredients

Turnip tops
Coarse sea salt
Butter

Directions

Prepare

Wash the turnip tops thoroughly and soak them in cold water for 1-2 hours.
Boil a large pot of water and add a small handful of coarse sea salt.

Cook and serve

Once boiling, add the turnip tops and cook until tender, about 20-30 minutes.
Drain the turnip tops in a colander and squeeze them dry.
Serve with melted butter.

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 + buttertop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,100 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Turnip tops: Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and mild when boiled.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, giving the cooked greens a smooth, savoury finish.

“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.