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Italian Salad

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Beetroot and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 146 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Italian Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice the cooked potatoes and beetroot, then cut them into rounds with a small cutter.

  2. Cut the other vegetables into bite-sized pieces, leaving peas and haricot beans whole.

  3. Combine equal quantities of each vegetable in a bowl.

  4. Add shredded cooked ham, fowl or game, pickles, and anchovies.

  5. Season with salt, pepper, and tartare sauce, then mix gently.

  6. Serve in a salad bowl, garnished with olives, capers, and slices of marinated tuna.

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 + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Beetroot + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together215 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Peas + cauliflowertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Potato + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

Swap the brussels sprouts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, beetroot, beans, peas, celery, cauliflower, ham):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Brussels sproutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, beetroot, beans, peas, celery, cauliflower, ham. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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