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Salsify in Salad or Aspic

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salsify in Salad or Aspic

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the salsifies until tender, then drain and cut them to the length of the mold.

  2. Dress the salsifies like a chartreuse and dip them in a little aspic to stick them together around the mold.

  3. Fill the center with small bits of salsifies, all the same size.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, olive oil, vinegar, and aspic, then add the finely chopped parsley and toss everything together.

  5. Place the mold in ice to chill.

  6. Before serving, dip a rubber spatula in hot water and rub it around the mold to loosen the salad, then turn it out onto a serving dish.

  7. If available, garnish with very green French beans or haricot beans for a better appearance.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Olive + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,470 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + beanstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,376 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

Swap the beans

The recipe marks beans as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, olive, vinegar, parsley):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Lentilsfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, olive, vinegar, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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