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Parsnips, to Boil

Boiled parsnips served with a butter and flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Parsnips, to Boil

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and boil

  1. Wash the parsnips, scraping away discolored parts.

  2. Boil the parsnips in salted water for about 45 minutes or until tender.

  3. Drain, scrape off the skin, and slice the parsnips.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a small saucepan, mix flour and butter, then add milk, pepper, and salt; stir until boiling.

  2. Add the parsnips and heat through, then serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Parsnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together669 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsnip + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Parsnips
Are the main vegetable, providing sweet flavor and a tender, starchy texture when boiled.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding creaminess and body.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps form the roux with the flour.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce until boiling. Flour thickens milk only when heated enough for its starch to swell. Stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the pan base, giving a smooth sauce.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, pepper, butter. 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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