Name: Salade Bohemienne
Ingredients: cabbage-lettuce leaves, shredded; beetroot, sliced; hard-boiled eggs, chopped; onion, finely chopped; gherkin, chopped; mayonnaise sauce; mustard

Why it works: Lettuce and beetroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 678 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Salade Bohemienne

Ingredients

Directions

In a large bowl, combine the shredded cabbage-lettuce, sliced beetroot, chopped hard-boiled eggs, finely chopped onion, and chopped gherkins.
Dress the salad with mayonnaise sauce and add mustard to taste. Mix well 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.

Lettuce + beetroottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together678 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,356 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beetroot + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together484 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together622 recipes

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

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, lettuce, beetroot, egg, sauce, mustard):

Horseradishfits better
Endivefits better
Chivefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, lettuce, beetroot, egg, sauce, mustard. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.