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Salad

Macedoine Salad

A salad of diced celery, beets, carrot, beans, asparagus tips, onion, peas, and mayonnaise dressing served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Macedoine Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cook the celery, beets, and carrot separately until tender, then chop finely.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the chopped vegetables, cooked beans, asparagus tips, and finely chopped onion to a bowl.

  2. Mix thoroughly with Mayonnaise Dressing.

  3. Arrange the mixture on crisp lettuce leaves and serve immediately.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Beans + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together292 recipes

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

  3. Beans + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together500 recipes

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

  4. Asparagus + lettucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

  5. Asparagus + peastop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together808 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

What each ingredient does

Root celery
Provides a firm, crisp texture that holds its shape in the salad.
Beets
Adds color and a mildly sweet earthy flavor to the mixture.
Carrot
Adds bulk, sweetness, and a firm bite to the diced vegetables.
Cooked beans
Adds body and substance, giving the salad protein-rich texture.
Asparagus tips
Adds tender texture and a distinct green vegetable flavor.
Mayonnaise dressing
Coats the vegetables with fat, adding richness and moisture.

The step that matters

Cook the celery, beets, and carrot separately until tender. Each vegetable has a different cooking time, so cooking them separately lets each reach tenderness without some turning mushy while others stay hard. Cutting them only after cooking keeps them firm enough to hold their shape in the salad.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, carrot, beans, asparagus, peas, lettuce):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, carrot, beans, asparagus, peas, lettuce. 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.

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