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Furee of Turnips

A thickened soup of turnips cooked with butter, broth, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Furee of Turnips

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and soften

  1. Clean and pare the turnips, then cut them into slices.

  2. Cook the turnips over a very low heat with a little butter, stirring gently to avoid browning.

Simmer and finish

  1. Once soft, add enough strong broth to cover the turnips.

  2. Dredge in a little flour and stew until the mixture reaches a proper consistency.

  3. If needed, add cream or white sauce to enhance the 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 + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Turnip + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,100 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
Form the main bulk of the soup and supply its mild, earthy flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the turnips soften gently without sticking.
Strong broth
Provides the cooking liquid and savory flavor that moistens the turnips.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it stews, giving the soup a fuller body.
Cream or white sauce
Adds richness and a smoother, creamier texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Cooking the turnips over very low heat with butter, stirring gently. Low heat softens the turnips slowly without browning them, keeping the color pale and the flavor mild. Gentle stirring spreads the heat evenly so pieces cook uniformly and do not scorch on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream. 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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