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Salmagundy

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Beetroot and cabbage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 377 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salmagundy

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the white part of cold chicken or veal, hard-boiled egg yolks and whites, parsley, anchovies, beetroot, red pickled cabbage, ham, and grated tongue separately.

  2. If desired, add a small amount of chopped onion.

  3. Place a saucer or large tea cup in a small dish.

  4. Arrange the chopped ingredients in rows around the base, varying the colors as you go.

  5. Top with a sprig of curled parsley or lay the ingredients in half egg whites standing upright, each half containing one ingredient.

  6. Garnish with curled butter and parsley between the rows.

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. Beetroot + cabbagetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together377 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + beetroottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together745 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  4. Beetroot + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,261 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, parsley, beetroot, cabbage, ham, butter):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, parsley, beetroot, cabbage, ham, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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