Name: Mushroom Salad
Ingredients: 1 pint of preserved mushrooms, sliced; 2 tablespoons of shredded celery; 1 tablespoon of shredded truffle; Lettuce; Hard-boiled eggs, sliced; Beetroot, sliced; Mayonnaise

Why it works: Lettuce and beetroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 678 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Mushroom Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the salad

In a bowl, mix together the mushrooms, celery, and truffles.
Stir in a little mayonnaise.

Serve

Pile the mixture on a bed of lettuce.
Garnish with sections of hard-boiled egg and slices of beetroot.

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.

Lettuce + beetroottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together678 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,900 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Celery + beetroottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together652 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mushroom + celerytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,006 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Preserved mushrooms: Provides the main bulk and earthy flavour of the salad.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and creaminess, binding the mushrooms, celery, and truffle together.
Shredded celery: Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch against the soft mushrooms.
Shredded truffle: Contributes a strong, aromatic earthy flavour in small amounts.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, truffle, lettuce, egg, beetroot):

Capersfits better
Tarragonfits better
Parsleyfits better
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, truffle, lettuce, egg, beetroot. 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.