Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Parsnips

Parsnips boiled, then fried in butter and seasoned with pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsnip and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,109 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Boiled Parsnips

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and scrape the parsnips.

Boil and drain

  1. Boil the parsnips in slightly salted water until very tender.

  2. Drain the parsnips.

Fry and serve

  1. Melt 2 to 3 ounces of butter in the saucepan and fry the parsnips until nicely browned.

  2. Season with pepper and serve with melted butter poured over them.

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

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

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

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

  3. Parsnip + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,051 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

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

What each ingredient does

Parsnips
Boiling softens the starchy flesh, and frying in butter browns the surface for sweet, nutty flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for frying and browning, and rich flavour when poured over the parsnips to serve.

The step that matters

Frying until nicely browned. The parsnips must be well drained and dry before frying, and the butter should be hot enough to brown them. Wet or pale parsnips steam instead of browning, losing the caramelised flavour.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Parsnipthe 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.

You might also like

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