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Bread Salad

A salad made with stale bread, oil, pickled onions, cauliflower, eggs, mutton, beetroot, vinegar, pepper, salt, mustard, and cress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and beetroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 146 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Bread Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Trim off the crust and cut the bread into dice.

  2. Place the bread in a bowl and pour the oil over it.

  3. Let it stand until all the oil is absorbed.

Assemble and garnish

  1. Mince the onion, cauliflower, eggs, and mutton.

  2. Sprinkle them over the bread.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Wash the mustard and cress well.

  5. Arrange them on top.

  6. Cut the beetroot into neat shapes.

  7. Use them as a garnish.

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. Cauliflower + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + beetroottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,261 recipes

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

  3. Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + cauliflowertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together935 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Forms the base of the salad and soaks up the oil, giving it body.
Oil
Coats the bread dice, adding richness and moisture to the salad.
Eggs
Add richness and a soft, binding texture when minced over the bread.
Pickled onions
Add sharp acidity and a sour bite that cuts through the oil.
Pickled cauliflower
Adds tangy, crisp-textured acidity that balances the rich oil and mutton.

The step that matters

Let it stand until all the oil is absorbed. Bread that is still greasy on the surface will taste heavy and oily. Letting the oil soak fully into the dice gives an even texture and flavour throughout.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, cauliflower, egg, beetroot, mutton, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, cauliflower, egg, beetroot, mutton, vinegar, pepper. 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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