Why it works: Corn salad and beetroot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Salad Fob Oold Lamb
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash and chop the lettuce finely.
Cut the roots and vegetables into small pieces.
Make the dressing
In a salad bowl, combine the olive oil, sweet anchovy sauce, chili vinegar, and the beaten yolks with cream.
Add salt to taste and mix well.
Combine and serve
Add the chopped vegetables to the bowl and stir until everything is evenly mixed.
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.
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Corn salad + beetroottop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Lettuce + beetroottop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together678 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
-
Watercress + corn saladtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Watercress + beetroottop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together143 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Lettuce + watercresstop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together307 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Hard-boiled egg yolks
- Mashed with cream and oil, they thicken the dressing and give it a rich, smooth body.
- Olive oil
- Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the dressing a silky texture.
- Cream
- Adds richness and moisture, softening the dressing and mellowing its sharpness.
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
Swap the radish
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, watercress, tarragon, corn salad, chive, beetroot, olive):
- Shallotfits better
- Kalefits better
- Welsh onionfits better
- Radishthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, watercress, tarragon, corn salad, chive, beetroot, olive. 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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