Name: Meat Salad
Ingredients: cold lean beef; lettuce; beetroot; plain dressing

Why it works: Lettuce and beetroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 678 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Meat Salad

Ingredients

cold lean beef
lettuce
beetroot
plain dressing

Directions

Cut the cold lean beef into pieces the size of an average lump of sugar.
Mix the beef with small pieces of lettuce and beetroot.
Use plain dressing to combine.

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.

Lettuce + beetroottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together678 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Beef + lettucetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together662 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + beetroottop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together301 recipes

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