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Beet and Cheese Salad

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 491 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Beet and Cheese Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Form cottage cheese into small balls.

  2. Attach half a walnut to each cheese ball.

  3. Slice the canned strawberry beets into heart shapes.

  4. On a lettuce leaf, place two cheese balls and three beet hearts.

  5. Chill until ready to serve.

  6. Add French dressing just before serving.

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. Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together491 recipes

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

  2. Cottage cheese + strawberrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Cottage cheese + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together46 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Strawberry + lettucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together80 recipes

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

  5. Walnut + strawberrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together150 recipes

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

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

Swap the strawberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cottage cheese, walnut, lettuce):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Strawberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cottage cheese, walnut, lettuce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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