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Drink

Parsnip Wine

A fermented beverage made from parsnips, sugar, citrus juice, ginger, yeast, and toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Parsnip Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Wash the parsnips without peeling them.

  2. Cut the parsnips into slices.

  3. Put the sliced parsnips and ginger into a pan with half the water and boil until tender.

  4. Strain the mixture over the sugar.

  5. Add the remaining water and the orange and lemon juice.

  6. Allow the mixture to stand overnight.

  7. Add a round of toast with the yeast and let it stand overnight again.

  8. Remove the bread and skim the mixture.

Ferment and mature

  1. Pour into stone bottles and let it ferment for 2 to 3 days.

  2. Place the bottles in a warm place for 3 weeks, cork lightly, and monitor for pressure.

  3. Once fermentation is complete, tighten the corks and let it stand for 5 to 6 months.

  4. Bottle carefully to avoid disturbing the sediment.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + gingertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsnip + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together55 recipes

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

  5. Parsnip + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together172 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Parsnips
Provide the main body and flavour base of the wine.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Yeast
Converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving fermentation.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and supports a clean fermentation.

The step that matters

Tighten the corks only after fermentation is complete. Sealing the bottles while fermentation is still active can cause pressure to build up and the bottles to burst. Waiting until bubbling has stopped keeps the wine safe to store.

Swap the parsnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, orange, lemon, ginger):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, orange, lemon, ginger. 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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