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Vegetable Salad

A salad of boiled carrots, peas, turnips, asparagus, and French beans, seasoned with ravigote and served with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Vegetable Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Boil equal weights of French beans, carrots, green peas, turnips, and asparagus separately until tender.

  2. Dry the vegetables with a clean cloth.

  3. Cut the vegetables into dice of ¼ to ⅜ inch.

  4. Cut French beans into squares.

Arrange and serve

  1. Arrange the vegetables on a serving dish, placing French beans at the bottom and center.

  2. In narrow rows, arrange carrots, peas, turnips, and asparagus points around the French beans.

  3. If the dish is large enough, repeat the arrangement.

  4. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of finely minced Ravigote.

  5. Serve with mayonnaise sauce on the side.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Chive + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tarragon + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together589 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Provide firm texture and mild sweetness once cooked until tender.
Peas
Add tender texture and a sweet, fresh flavour to the salad.
Turnips
Contribute a firm, slightly peppery bite and texture to the mix.
Asparagus
Adds tender texture and a distinctive green vegetable flavour.
French beans
Provide the main firm, crisp texture and form the base of the arrangement.

The step that matters

Drying the vegetables after boiling. Excess surface water dilutes the mayonnaise sauce and makes the salad watery, so the vegetables should be fully dried before cutting and arranging.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, asparagus, beans, tarragon, chive, chervil):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, asparagus, beans, tarragon, chive, chervil. 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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