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Salad

Macedoine Salad

A mixed vegetable salad with French dressing and capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and capers share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Macedoine Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine diced carrots, white turnips, yellow turnips, artichoke bottoms, green peas, asparagus tips, and string beans in a bowl, and mix well.

  2. Serve the mixture on lettuce leaves.

  3. Drizzle with French dressing and sprinkle with capers.

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. Artichoke + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together77 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + artichoketop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together140 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lettuce + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Artichoke + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together101 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Adds firm texture and mild sweetness to the salad.
Turnips
Contribute firm crunch and a slightly peppery bite.
Artichoke bottoms
Add a tender, meaty texture to the mixture.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a soft, tender bite.
Asparagus tips
Add delicate texture and a fresh, vegetal flavor.
String beans
Add crisp texture and fresh green flavor.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, artichoke, asparagus, beans, lettuce, capers):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, artichoke, asparagus, beans, lettuce, capers. 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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