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Salad

Cardoon Salad, Spanish Style

A salad of cooked cardoons topped with a garlic, bell pepper, and vinegar dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Cardoon Salad, Spanish Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cardoons

  1. Prepare and cook the cardoons as in recipe No. 363.

  2. Cut the cardoons into 1-inch pieces and drain on a napkin.

  3. Place the cardoons in a salad bowl and season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Make the dressing

  1. Chop the garlic very finely.

  2. Heat the chopped garlic in a frying pan with the sweet oil.

  3. Fry the garlic lightly without browning it.

  4. Add the chopped bell peppers and vinegar to the pan.

  5. Let the mixture boil for 2 minutes.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the cardoons.

  2. Mix well 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cardoon + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Cardoon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8 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

Cardoons
Form the main body of the salad as the vegetable being dressed and served.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma to the warm oil, which is gently cooked without browning.
Sweet oil
Carries the garlic flavour and coats the cardoons, adding richness and moisture.
Bell peppers
Add sweetness and crisp texture to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.

The step that matters

Fry the garlic lightly without browning it. Garlic turns bitter and acrid when browned, which would spoil the dressing. Cooking it gently in oil releases its aroma while keeping its flavour clean.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cardoon, pepper, garlic, vinegar. 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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