Skip to main content
Soup

Potage Aux Navets, or Turnip Soup

A simple turnip soup made with clarified butter, sugar, salt, and consommé.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Potage Aux Navets, or Turnip Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the cut turnips in water until ready.

  2. Clarify the butter in a shallow saucepan over medium heat.

Fry and drain

  1. Drain the turnips and fry them in the clarified butter until golden brown.

  2. Transfer the fried turnips to a sieve to drain excess butter.

Simmer in consommé

  1. Place the turnips in a soup pot, add a little sugar and salt, and fill with consommé.

  2. Bring to a gentle boil, skimming the surface as needed.

  3. For added flavor, include blanched celery heads at the beginning.

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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Turnip + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Turnip + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Turnips
Form the body of the soup and, once fried, develop a golden, browned surface.
Butter
Fries the turnips to a golden brown and adds richness.
Consommé
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the soup.

The step that matters

Fry the turnips until golden brown. Frying in clarified butter browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, which adds deep savory flavor. Clarified butter has no milk solids to burn, so it can reach browning temperatures without scorching. Drain well so excess fat does not dilute the broth.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar. 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.

More turnip soup recipes

Carrot 7 See all 93 →

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipesCream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipes