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Salad

In Salad

A salad of thinly sliced beef with a sweet oil and vinegar dressing, seasoned with salt, pepper, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

In Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the beef into very thin and short slices.

  2. Place the slices on a dish with chopped parsley.

  3. In a saucer, mix 2 tablespoons of sweet oil with 1 tablespoon of vinegar.

  4. Add salt, pepper, and some mustard to the mixture.

  5. Beat the mixture lightly, pour it over the beef slices, and serve.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Beef
Forms the main body of the salad, so thin, short slices give a tender bite.
Sweet oil
Adds fat and moisture, carrying flavour across the thin beef slices.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps hold the oil and vinegar together as an emulsion.

The step that matters

Beat the dressing lightly. Oil and vinegar separate quickly. Beating them lightly, with the mustard's help, creates a temporary emulsion so the dressing coats the beef evenly rather than pooling.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, parsley, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, vinegar, pepper. 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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