Name: Boiled Salad
Ingredients: 2 Onions, boiled or baked; 1 Beetroot, baked; 1 head Cauliflower or Broccoli, boiled; 2 stalks Celery, boiled; 1 cup French Beans, boiled; 1 small quantity raw Endive or Lettuce; 1 tablespoon Chervil or Burnet; Salad dressing to taste

Why it works: Endive and chervil share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 75 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Boiled Salad

Ingredients

2 Onions, boiled or baked
1 Beetroot, baked
1 head Cauliflower or Broccoli, boiled
2 stalks Celery, boiled
1 cup French Beans, boiled
1 small quantity raw Endive or Lettuce
1 tablespoon Chervil or Burnet
Salad dressing to taste

Directions

Cook the vegetables

Boil or bake the onions until tender.
Bake the beetroot until soft.
Boil the cauliflower or broccoli until cooked.
Boil the celery and French beans until tender.

Assemble and serve

Combine all the boiled vegetables in a bowl.
Top with raw endive or lettuce and sprinkle with chervil or burnet.
Drizzle with salad dressing before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Endive + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together75 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beetroot + endivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together132 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beetroot + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together126 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Cauliflower + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together51 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beetroot + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together146 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

Onions: Adds sweetness and soft body to the salad when cooked until tender.
Beetroot: Provides earthy sweetness and a deep colour when baked until soft.
Cauliflower or broccoli: Forms the bulk of the salad, giving a firm yet tender bite after boiling.
Celery: Contributes a crisp, slightly fibrous texture after boiling.
French beans: Adds tender texture and mild flavour once boiled.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beetroot, cauliflower, celery, beans, endive, chervil):

Lettucefits better
Turnipfits better
Chivefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beetroot, cauliflower, celery, beans, endive, 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.