Name: Beet Salad
Ingredients: 2 medium beets, baked; 1 layer of chicory leaves (optional); 2-3 roots of boiled oyster plant, kohlrabi, or root celery; 1 button onion, sliced; 1 cucumber pickle, sliced; salad dressing to taste

Why it works: Chicory and cucumber share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beet Salad

Ingredients

2 medium beets, baked
1 layer of chicory leaves (optional)
2-3 roots of boiled oyster plant, kohlrabi, or root celery
1 button onion, sliced
1 cucumber pickle, sliced
salad dressing to taste

Directions

Prepare

Bake the beets until tender, then let them cool and slice them.

Assemble and serve

In a salad bowl, layer the chicory leaves.
Add the sliced baked beets on top of the chicory.
Next, add the boiled oyster plant, kohlrabi, or root celery.
Add the sliced button onion and cucumber pickle.
Drizzle salad dressing over the top 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.

Chicory + cucumbertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together12 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,050 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Oyster + cucumbertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together192 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Chicory + oniontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together67 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Oyster + oniontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beets: Provide the main body, earthy sweetness and color of the salad.
Chicory leaves: Add a crisp, slightly bitter leafy base that holds the other layers.
Boiled oyster plant, kohlrabi, or root celery: Adds a firm, crunchy-tender root texture to the salad.
Button onion: Contributes sharp aroma and a bit of bite.
Cucumber pickle: Adds acidity and tang that balances the sweetness of the beets.