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Beet Salad

A cold beet salad with sliced beet, onions, gravy, flour, cream, vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper, and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Beet Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beet

  1. Parboil the beet, then remove the skin and cut it into thin slices.

Make the sauce

  1. Stew the beet slices with small onions in gravy thickened with flour and cream.

  2. Add vinegar, seasonings, and sugar.

Serve

  1. Spread the sliced beet on a dish, placing the onions between them.

  2. Serve cold with cheese and vinegar poured over.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Vinegar + cheesetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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

Beet
Forms the main body of the salad and provides its colour and earthy flavour.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it clings to the beet slices instead of running off.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the thickened gravy.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet earthiness of the beet.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Stewing the beet and onions in the thickened gravy. The flour must be fully cooked into the gravy so it thickens smoothly and does not taste raw or pasty. Stewing gently also lets the beet slices absorb flavour without breaking apart.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cream, vinegar, pepper, sugar, cheese):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream, vinegar, pepper, sugar, cheese. 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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