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Excellent Turnip, or Artichoke Sauce for Boiled Meat

A creamy sauce made from boiled turnips, butter, flour, and cream, served over boiled meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Excellent Turnip, or Artichoke Sauce for Boiled Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turnips

  1. Boil the turnips in water until tender.

  2. Drain and pass the boiled turnips through a sieve.

Make the sauce

  1. In a clean saucepan, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Stir in the flour until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the cream while stirring.

  4. For extra flavor, boil a little cayenne tied in muslin in the cream before adding the turnips.

  5. Add the pureed turnips and salt, mixing well until hot.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over boiled mutton, veal, lamb, or poultry.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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
Provide the main body and flavor of the sauce when pureed.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and giving the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the sauce its creamy texture.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour and adding the cream gradually. Adding cream all at once to the butter and flour can cause lumps. Gradual addition while stirring lets the flour starch hydrate evenly, producing a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Turnipthe original

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