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Macedoine of Vegetables

A mixed vegetable dish of diced turnip, cauliflower, carrot, peas, and string beans, seasoned with butter, salt, and paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 286 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Macedoine of Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the turnips and carrots into ½ inch dice or use small vegetable cutters for fancy shapes.

  2. Cook the vegetables separately until tender and drain well.

Combine and serve

  1. Mix the cooked vegetables lightly to avoid breaking them.

  2. Season with butter, salt, and paprika, or moisten with a béchamel or cream sauce.

  3. Serve as a garnish for meat or in a vegetable dish, or arrange separately for a colorful presentation.

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. Turnip + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Turnip + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + beanstop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the cooked vegetables.
Turnip
Provides firm, slightly peppery bulk that holds its shape when cooked.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and color to the medley.
Cauliflower
Contributes mild flavor and a tender-firm texture when cooked.

The step that matters

Cook the vegetables separately until tender. Vegetables with different densities cook at different rates. Cooking them separately lets each reach tenderness without overcooking the softer peas or string beans, and keeps the pieces intact when they are combined.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, cauliflower, carrot, butter, beans):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, cauliflower, carrot, butter, beans. 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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