Name: Winter Salad
Ingredients: 1 small head of celery; 1 cooked beetroot; 3 or 4 cold potatoes; 1 teaspoon of salt

Why it works: Beetroot and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 330 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Winter Salad

Ingredients

1 small head of celery
1 cooked beetroot
3 or 4 cold potatoes
1 teaspoon of salt

Directions

Prepare

Chop the celery into small pieces.
Dice the cooked beetroot.
Cube the cold potatoes.

Combine

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and season with salt. Toss gently to mix.

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.

Beetroot + potatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together330 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Celery + beetroottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together652 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Celery: Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild vegetal crunch to the salad.
Beetroot: Provides earthy sweetness and the main colour of the salad.
Potatoes: Give bulk and a soft, starchy body that holds the other vegetables together.