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A Macedoine, with Oil, in a Crust

A diced vegetable medley of carrots, turnips, asparagus, and green beans, dressed with broth and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

A Macedoine, with Oil, in a Crust

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the carrots and turnips into pieces ⅔ inch long and then into small rounds ¼ inch in diameter.

Cook and cool

  1. Boil the vegetables in salted water for a few minutes.

  2. Transfer them to cold water to cool.

Dress and serve

  1. Dress the carrots and turnips separately in broth with a little sugar.

  2. Drain the vegetables, ensuring the turnips remain firm.

  3. Mix the cooled vegetables with asparagus heads and green French beans.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Asparagus + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together292 recipes

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

  3. Turnip + asparagustop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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

Carrots
Provide sweetness, color and a firm bite that holds its shape in the salad.
Turnips
Add a firm, crisp texture and a mild peppery flavor to the salad.
Asparagus heads
Add tender texture and a fresh, green vegetable flavor.
Green french beans
Add crisp texture and fresh green flavor to the mixed vegetables.

The step that matters

Drain the vegetables, ensuring the turnips remain firm.. Overcooked turnips soften and lose their structure because heat breaks down the cell walls of the vegetable. Cooking briefly and cooling quickly helps keep the pieces firm.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, sugar, asparagus, beans):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, sugar, asparagus, 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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