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Beetroot and Onions — No. I

A dish of sliced onions and boiled beets pickled in vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Beetroot and Onions — No. I

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the onions.

  2. Prepare a pan of boiling salted water.

  3. Plunge the onions into the boiling water for 1 minute, then drain and dry them immediately with a cloth.

Pickle

  1. Add the sliced beets to the onions.

  2. Cover the mixture with cold vinegar and add the muslin bag of spices.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Form the bulk of the dish and, once blanched, absorb the vinegar flavour while staying firm.
Beets
Provide the colour and earthy sweetness that the pickling liquid carries into the onions.
Cold vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.

The step that matters

Drying the onions after blanching. Blanching softens the onions briefly, and any water left on them dilutes the cold vinegar and weakens the pickling liquid. Drying them immediately helps the vinegar penetrate and keeps the pickle sharp.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pepper, clove):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, clove. 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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