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Carrot Salad

A salad of boiled carrots tossed with sugar, lemon juice, olive oil, and garnished with onion or green leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Carrot Salad

Why it works: Carrot and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Carrot Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape and boil the carrots in fast-boiling water until tender.

  2. Cut the carrots into thin slices and place them in a glass salad bowl.

Dress and serve

  1. Sprinkle the carrots with sifted loaf sugar.

  2. Add the lemon juice and olive oil.

  3. Garnish with thin slices of onion or fresh green salad leaves.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Carrot + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Form the body of the salad and, once cooked, soften to a tender texture.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Provides acidity that brightens the flavour and cuts through the sweetness.
Olive oil
Adds fat and moisture, giving the dressing a smooth, rich mouthfeel.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, sugar, lemon, olive):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, sugar, lemon, olive. 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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