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Macedoine of Vegetables

A mixed vegetable dish of diced carrot, turnip, peas, French beans, flageolets, cauliflower, and béchamel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 286 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Macedoine of Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the carrot with a vegetable scoop and cook it in salted boiling water for 15 minutes.

  2. Repeat the process with the turnip, cooking it separately.

Combine and serve

  1. Drain both vegetables and place them in a saucepan with the cooked peas, French beans, flageolets, and cauliflower.

  2. Moisten with hot béchamel sauce and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Let it simmer for 10 minutes and serve as required.

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. Turnip + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Turnip + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + beanstop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrot
Holds its shape when cooked, giving the dish firm, colourful cubes.
Turnip
Adds firm texture and a mild, slightly peppery flavour.
Béchamel sauce
Coats the vegetables with a creamy, binding moisture.
Peas
Add sweetness and a tender texture to the mixture.
French beans
Contribute a crisp-tender texture and fresh green flavour.

The step that matters

Cooking the carrot and turnip separately. Carrots and turnips need different cooking times, so cooking them apart keeps each one evenly tender instead of mushy or underdone when combined.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, beans, cauliflower, sauce, pepper, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, beans, cauliflower, sauce, pepper, nutmeg. 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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