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Salad

Macedoine Salad

A chilled salad of peas, beans, carrots, beets, celery, tossed with French dressing and served over lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Macedoine Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix together the peas, string beans, carrots, beets, and celery.

  2. Chill the mixture on ice until very cold.

Dress and serve

  1. Pour French dressing over the chilled vegetables and mix well.

  2. Line a bowl with lettuce leaves and place the vegetable mixture in the center.

  3. 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Beans + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together500 recipes

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

  3. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Beans + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

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

  5. Peas + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together949 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

Green peas
Provide the main body and sweet, tender bulk of the salad.
String beans
Add firm texture and a crisp bite to the salad.
Carrots
Contribute mild sweetness and a firm, crunchy texture.
Beets
Add earthy sweetness and a deep color to the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and fresh, slightly sharp flavor.

The step that matters

Chill the mixture until very cold. Cold vegetables stay crisp and firm, while warm ones soften and turn limp. Chilling before dressing keeps the salad's texture intact when served.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, carrot, celery, lettuce):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, carrot, celery, lettuce. 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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