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To Boil Turnips

Turnips boiled with butter, cream, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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To Boil Turnips

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Boil Turnips

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash, peel, and slice the turnips.

  2. Place them in a saucepan with boiling water.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil steadily until tender enough to press through a sieve, about 1 hour.

  2. Return to the saucepan, add butter, cream, salt, and black pepper.

  3. Stir until well combined.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

White turnips
Form the main body of the dish, softening into a tender purée when boiled.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the purée a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the purée and softening its flavour.

The step that matters

Boil steadily until tender enough to press through a sieve. Turnips must be fully softened for a smooth purée. Undercooked pieces stay firm and grainy, and they will not press through a sieve evenly.

Swap the turnip

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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