Name: French "Peasant" Beets
Yield: Serves 2 as an entrée, 4 as a side dish
Ingredients: 4 to 6 beets with greens (I like a mixture of golden and red beets); 1 bunch Swiss chard, rinsed and dried; 3 tablespoons unsalted butter; 1 shallot, minced; Salt and freshly ground black pepper; 2 tablespoons white wine (Muscadet is my preference); 1/2 pound Bucheron (at room temperature), cut into 4 wedges; Crusty peasant-style bread (warmed in the oven)

Why it works: Chard and shallot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

French "Peasant" Beets

Serves 2 as an entrée, 4 as a side dish

Ingredients

4 to 6 beets with greens (I like a mixture of golden and red beets)
1 bunch Swiss chard, rinsed and dried
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 shallot, minced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons white wine (Muscadet is my preference)
1/2 pound Bucheron (at room temperature), cut into 4 wedges
Crusty peasant-style bread (warmed in the oven)

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

630Calories

15 gProtein

13 gFat

107 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Beet	1/2 cup (85g)	35
Wine	2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)	25
Shallot	1 tbsp minced (10g)	7
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Swiss Chard	not in our table	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By epicurious. Recipe from Open Recipes.

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.

Chard + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together20 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Chard + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together252 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Shallot + white winetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together881 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Swap the chard

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

Chivefits better
Leekfits better
Capsicumfits better
Chardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shallot, pepper, white wine, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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