Why it works: Asparagus and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 163 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓
Vegetable Salad with Aspic Jelly, Macedoine
Ingredients
Directions
Cook each vegetable separately until tender, then let them cool.
Season the vegetables with pepper, coarse sea salt, oil, and vinegar.
Decorate a mold with Aspic jelly and the cooked vegetables.
In a bowl, mix the remaining vegetables with a few spoonfuls of Mayonnaise dressing made with Aspic jelly.
Fill the center of the mold with the salad mixture and smooth the top.
Set the mold aside to firm up.
To serve, dip the mold in warm water and turn the salad out onto a serving stand.
Garnish the base with asparagus tops, artichoke bottoms, and halved hard boiled eggs, then sprinkle with finely chopped Aspic jelly.
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.
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Asparagus + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together163 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Asparagus + beanstop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together292 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together290 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Asparagus + peastop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together808 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Carrot + beanstop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,443 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the carrot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, cauliflower, peas, beans, pepper, vinegar, egg):
- Cucumberfits better
- Lettucefits better
- Spinachfits better
- Carrotthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, cauliflower, peas, beans, pepper, vinegar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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