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Salad

Onion Salad

A salad of thinly sliced onions soaked in salted water, served with a vinaigrette of vinegar, pepper, salt, and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Onion Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onion

  1. Slice the onion into wafer-thin slices.

  2. Soak the slices in cold salted water to cover for several hours.

  3. Drain and rinse the onion in cold fresh water.

Serve

  1. Serve with a dressing made of vinegar, black pepper, cayenne pepper, salt, and oil to taste.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. 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

Onion
Forms the main body of the salad, with its sharp flavor softened by soaking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the onion and dressing.
Oil
Adds fat and smooth mouthfeel to the dressing, carrying the spices.

The step that matters

Soaking the onion slices. Soaking in cold salted water draws out some of the sharp sulfur compounds that make raw onion harsh, leaving a milder, crisper taste. Rinsing afterward removes the surface salt and any remaining bitterness before dressing.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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