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Salad

Beetroot Salad

A salad of sliced beetroot, celery, vinegar, salad oil, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beetroot Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cooked and cooled beetroot.

  2. Arrange the slices in a glass or vegetable dish.

  3. Add chopped celery.

Dress and season

  1. Drizzle with vinegar and salad oil.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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

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

  2. Beetroot + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together652 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beetroot + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,682 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Beetroot + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beetroot
Provides the main body, earthy flavour and colour of the salad.
Celery
Adds a crisp, fresh texture that contrasts with the soft beetroot.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the earthiness of the beetroot.
Salad oil
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the dressing a smooth mouthfeel.

Swap the beetroot

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Beetrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, vinegar, pepper. 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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