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Turnip Tops

Boiled turnip tops seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,252 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Turnip Tops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the turnip tops well in three waters.

Cook

  1. Place the tops in boiling water and add the salt and baking soda.

  2. Boil uncovered until tender, about 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Drain the tops and rub them through a wire sieve.

  2. Return the tops to the saucepan, add butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Stir until very hot and serve in a warm dish.

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. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. 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 bulk of the dish, becoming soft and tender when boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the puréed greens.
Baking soda
Raises the cooking water's alkalinity, helping the greens turn bright green and soften.

The step that matters

Boil uncovered until tender. Greens need enough time in boiling water to soften fully, and a too-short boil leaves them fibrous. Boiling uncovered lets volatile sulfur compounds escape, keeping the flavour fresher and the colour brighter.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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