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Stuffed Beet Salad

A salad of boiled beets, ham, celery, parsley, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Beet Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beets

  1. Boil the large beets and scrape off the skins.

  2. When the beets are cold, scoop out the insides.

Make the filling

  1. Chop equal parts of beets, ham, and celery.

  2. Add a little chopped parsley.

  3. Mix with enough mayonnaise to moisten, being careful not to use too much beet as it makes the salad too sweet.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Ham + celerytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  3. Ham + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,249 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 bulk and color, and add natural sweetness in proportion to the amount used.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor and a firm, meaty texture to the filling.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, slightly vegetal bite that contrasts with the soft beets.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and moisture, binding the chopped ingredients into a creamy salad.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma that lightens the rich filling.

The step that matters

Mixing in the beets. Beets contain natural sugars, so adding too many shifts the balance toward sweetness. Keeping the beet quantity equal to the ham and celery preserves a savory flavor.

“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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