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Salad

Vegetable Salad, American Style

A mixed vegetable salad with artichoke, celery, celeriac, potatoes, carrots, beets, beans, seasoned with salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Vegetable Salad, American Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely slice equal quantities of cooked artichoke bottoms, celery, celeriac, potatoes, carrots, and beets, keeping pieces about the same size.

  2. Place the sliced vegetables in a salad bowl and add shelled beans.

Dress and rest

  1. Season with salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar, then mix gently.

  2. Cover the bowl and set it in a cool place to macerate for one hour.

Serve

  1. Before serving, add a little more oil and vinegar, and dress the salad in the bowl.

  2. Garnish as desired.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Artichoke + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together154 recipes

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

  3. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Carrot + beanstop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked artichoke bottoms
Provide the tender, meaty base that makes up the bulk of the salad.
Potatoes
Add starchy body and absorb dressing, holding their shape in the salad.
Beets
Add earthy sweetness and colour that bleeds into the surrounding vegetables.
Shelled beans
Add creamy texture and substance, softening slightly as they rest in the dressing.
Oil
Carries flavour and coats the vegetables, adding richness and moisture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavours and softens the raw-tasting vegetables.

The step that matters

Macerating the salad for one hour. Resting the salad in the seasoned dressing lets salt draw moisture and flavour into the vegetables. Keeping the cut pieces similar in size ensures they season evenly, so the salad tastes balanced rather than patchy.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, celery, carrot, beans, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, celery, carrot, beans, pepper, 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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