Name: Turnip Salad
Ingredients: 1 ½ cups grated turnip; sharp vinegar; sugar to taste; a little salt

Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Turnip Salad

Ingredients

1 ½ cups grated turnip
sharp vinegar
sugar to taste
a little salt

Directions

Grate the turnip as you would horseradish.
Pour sharp vinegar over the grated turnip.
Add sugar to taste and a little salt.
Serve very cold.

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.

Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Turnip + vinegartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together652 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Turnip + sugartop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,330 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Turnip: Forms the crisp, fibrous base of the salad, giving it bulk and texture.
Sharp vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to offset the sharpness of the vinegar.