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Vegetable Salad

A chilled salad of boiled carrots, turnips, potatoes, peas, beans, beets, cauliflower, dressed with plain French dressing and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Green beans and beans share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 36 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Vegetable Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut carrots, turnips, and potatoes into balls.

  2. Boil them in salted water until tender.

  3. Chill them.

  4. Boil peas, green beans, flageolet beans, sliced beets, and young cauliflower.

  5. Chill them.

  6. Drain all vegetables thoroughly.

Arrange and serve

  1. Remove the coarse stem from the cauliflower without breaking it.

  2. Place the cauliflower in the center of a large salad bowl or deep dish.

  3. Arrange the other vegetables in little heaps around the cauliflower, alternating colors.

  4. Pour ½ cup of Plain French Dressing over the salad.

  5. Sprinkle with chopped parsley, chervil, and tarragon.

  6. Serve additional dressing in a sauceboat.

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. Green beans + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together36 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Turnip + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Peas + green beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together54 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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Hold their shape when cut into balls and boiled, giving the salad a firm, starchy body.
Carrots
Add firm texture and sweetness that contrasts with the tender beans and peas.
Young cauliflower
Serves as the firm, central piece of the salad, giving a tender bite.
Flageolet beans
Add a creamy, tender texture that holds its shape after boiling and chilling.

The step that matters

Drain all vegetables thoroughly. Water left on boiled and chilled vegetables dilutes the French dressing and makes the salad soggy and bland, so the vegetables should be dry before arranging.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, potato, green beans, beans, cauliflower, parsley):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Lima beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, potato, green beans, beans, cauliflower, parsley. 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.

More vegetable salad recipes

Mixed 12Boiled 5Red 5Compound 4Gelatin 4Frozen 3 See all 47 →

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