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Harsh Radish

A boiled soup of radish leaves, salt pork, potatoes, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Harsh Radish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the young radish leaves in a little water for an hour or more.

  2. Add a few slices of salt pork and pared potatoes to the pot.

  3. Grate or finely grind the radish root and mix it with a little vinegar 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.

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. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Radish + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together508 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Radish + potatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methyl-1-butanol (fusel, malty).

  4. Pork + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Potato + vinegartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Young radish leaves
Provide the main body and the green, slightly peppery flavour of the soup.
Salt pork
Adds savoury fat and salty flavour that enriches the broth.
Potatoes
Break down during simmering to give the soup body and a thicker texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sharp flavour of the grated radish root.

The step that matters

Boiling the radish leaves for an hour or more. Long simmering softens the fibrous leaves and mellows their bitterness, so the greens become tender rather than tough and harsh.

Swap the radish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, potato, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Onionfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Radishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, potato, vinegar. 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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