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Salad

Beetroot Salad

A salad of sliced boiled beetroot, onions, pepper, sea salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beetroot and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,261 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beetroot Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice the boiled beetroot.

  2. Layer the beetroot slices in a soup plate with sliced onions.

  3. Sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Add enough vinegar to moisten the salad.

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. Beetroot + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,261 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beetroot + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,682 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 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

Boiled beetroot
Forms the bulk of the salad and provides its earthy sweetness and colour.
Sliced onions
Adds a sharp, pungent bite that contrasts with the sweet beetroot.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and moistens the salad.

Swap the beetroot

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

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

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