Name: Betterave a L' Orient Ale
Ingredients: 1 small beetroot; 1 hard-boiled egg; 12 anchovy fillets; 2 teaspoons capers; 2 teaspoons gherkins; 2 chives; 2 teaspoons anchovy paste; a little vinegar; brown bread for crostini

Why it works: Beetroot and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 231 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Betterave a L' Orient Ale

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beetroot

Slice the beetroot into 1/8-inch thick slices.
Cut out small rounds about 1 inch in diameter with a fancy cutter.

Assemble the crostini

Place a layer of anchovy fillets on each beetroot round.
Mix the finely chopped capers, gherkin, and chives with anchovy paste and a few drops of vinegar in a bowl.
Spread the mixture over the beetroot rounds carefully.
Slice the hard-boiled egg thinly.
Place one egg slice on each beetroot round.
Mix a little cayenne with salt.
Sprinkle the cayenne-salt mixture over the surface.
Garnish with additional anchovy fillets and parsley before serving.

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.

Beetroot + caperstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together231 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Capers + chivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together245 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beetroot + chivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together172 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Anchovy + caperstop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together473 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,260 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Beetroot: Provides the base rounds and an earthy, sweet colour and flavour.
Anchovy fillets: Add a salty, savoury umami flavour that stands out against the beetroot.
Anchovy paste: Adds concentrated salty, savoury depth to the spread.
Capers: Add sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the spread.
Hard-boiled egg: Adds creamy richness and mild flavour as a topping.

Swap the beetroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, anchovy, capers, chive, vinegar, bread):

Shallotfits better
Mustardfits better
Lettucefits about as well
Beetrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, anchovy, capers, chive, vinegar, bread. 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.