Name: Salsify Salad
Ingredients: white salsify; vinegar; water; coarse sea salt; chopped blanched parsley; oil; white French vinegar; white pepper

Why it works: Parsley and white pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,451 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Salsify Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Scrape the white salsify and immediately place it in a mixture of vinegar and water to keep it white.
Boil the salsify in slightly salted water until tender.
Transfer the boiled salsify to cold water until cooled.
Drain and dry the salsify, then cut it into small half-inch pieces or leave it whole in sticks.
Sprinkle chopped blanched parsley over the salsify.
Dress with oil and white French vinegar, using white pepper instead of black.

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.

Parsley + white peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,451 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,477 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Vinegar + white peppertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,154 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).