Name: Turnip Purée, Rich
Ingredients: turnips; 1 tablespoon cream; 1 tablespoon béchamel or other rich sauce; ½ ounce butter; seasoning; garnish (chopped parsley, cooked carrot, beetroot, capers)

Why it works: Beetroot and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 231 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Turnip Purée, Rich

Ingredients

Directions

Make the purée

Boil the turnips until tender and then sieve them.
In a saucepan, combine the turnip pulp with cream, béchamel, and butter.
Season to taste and stir for a few minutes.

Serve

Serve plain or garnish with chopped parsley, carrot, beetroot, or capers.

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.

Beetroot + caperstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together231 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + beetroottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together336 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + caperstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together145 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,550 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Turnips: Form the main body of the purée once boiled and sieved into a smooth pulp.
Cream: Adds fat and richness, giving the purée a smoother, silkier texture.
Béchamel or other rich sauce: Adds body and thickness, helping the purée hold together and feel creamy.
Butter: Adds fat and flavour, contributing richness and a glossy finish.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, cream, sauce, butter, parsley, beetroot, capers):

Shallotfits better
Horseradishfits better
Lettucefits better
Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, cream, sauce, butter, parsley, beetroot, capers. 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.