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Turnips Au Gratin

Turnips au Gratin is a baked dish of sliced turnips topped with béchamel sauce, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Turnips Au Gratin

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a sharp oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the turnips

  1. Peel and thinly slice the turnips, then wash and drain them.

  2. Melt ¼ cup of butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  3. Add the turnips and stir over medium heat, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  4. Moisten with a little stock and cook until tender, then drain thoroughly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Arrange the turnip slices or purée in a greased gratin dish.

  2. Pour a well-reduced Béchamel sauce over the turnips.

  3. Sprinkle the surface with bread crumbs and add a few small pieces of butter.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes, until the top is browned.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Turnip + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together831 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Turnips
Form the bulk of the dish, becoming tender when cooked and softening into the gratin.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the turnips cook gently and brown the top.
Béchamel sauce
Provides a creamy, binding layer that keeps the gratin moist and smooth.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven, adding texture contrast.

The step that matters

Drain the turnips thoroughly after cooking. Turnips release water as they cook. Excess liquid left in the dish would thin the Béchamel and make the gratin soggy rather than creamy and set.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, bread, 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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