Skip to main content
Main

Creamed Parsnips

Creamed parsnips are boiled parsnips mixed with butter, pepper, salt, parsley, and a cream or milk and flour mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsnip and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 484 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Creamed Parsnips

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the parsnips until tender, then scrape and slice them lengthwise.

  2. In a pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  3. Add the parsnips, pepper, salt, and parsley; shake until the mixture boils.

  4. In a small bowl, mix the cream or milk with the flour.

  5. Add the cream mixture to the pan, boil once, and pour over the parsnips.

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. Parsnip + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping the parsnips taste rounded.
Cream or milk
Provides moisture and creaminess that forms the sauce around the parsnips.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the cream mixture so it clings to the parsnips instead of running off.
Parsnips
Form the main body of the dish, giving a sweet, earthy flavour and tender texture.

The step that matters

Adding the cream mixture. Flour mixed into cold cream can clump, and the sauce only thickens properly when it is brought to a boil, so stir it smooth before adding and boil it once.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Parsnipthe original

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

You might also like

Parsnip CakesParsnip Cakes12 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes