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Turnips in a Haricot Blanc

Turnips simmered in a light-colored consommé and finished with a cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Turnips in a Haricot Blanc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turnips

  1. Shape the turnips like a barrel or cut them into dice.

  2. Boil the turnips and skim them until nearly done.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew the turnips in light-colored consommé with butter, sugar, and salt.

  2. Cover with a round paper to keep them white.

  3. Once done, drain the turnips on a sieve.

  4. Place them neatly on a dish and pour cream sauce over them.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender as they stew in the broth.
Light colored consomme
Supplies the cooking liquid that flavors the turnips while they stew.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the turnips a softer, rounder mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the turnips' natural bitterness.

The step that matters

Covering the turnips with a round paper. Keeping the turnips covered while they stew limits contact with air and heat, helping them stay pale rather than darkening. Uncovered surfaces can brown or discolor during long cooking.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, cream, sauce. 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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