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To Stew Turnips with Meat

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Stew Turnips with Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare fresh beef or pork and stew in a small amount of water until about half cooked, skimming off any scum.

  2. Pour the water over cold and heat gradually; add a little coarse sea salt.

  3. Peel and slice the turnips thinly, rinse well, and add them to the pot with the meat.

  4. Stew until the turnips are soft.

  5. Remove the meat, add more salt and black pepper to the turnips if needed, and stir in 1 cup of sweet cream.

  6. Mash the turnips until smooth and nearly dry, then transfer to a covered dish and serve immediately.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beef + turniptop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,940 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Beef + creamtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,128 recipes

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

Pepper and cream 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

Swap the turnip

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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