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Salad

Onion Salad

A salad of peeled, boiled, soaked, sliced onions seasoned with salt, pepper, vinegar, oil, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Onion Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions.

  2. Cover them with cold water.

  3. Bring the onions to a boil.

  4. Drain the onions.

  5. Soak the onions in cold water for 6 to 7 hours, changing the water repeatedly.

  6. Slice the onions thinly.

Dress and serve

  1. Season the sliced onions with salt and pepper.

  2. Moisten the onions with vinegar and more oil.

  3. Sprinkle the onions with parsley and serve.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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

Large mild onions
Provide the main body of the salad, becoming tender and mellow after boiling and soaking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the oil.
Oil
Adds fat and moisture, carrying flavor and softening the onion slices.

The step that matters

Soaking the onions in cold water. Soaking for several hours with the water changed repeatedly draws out sharp sulfur compounds, so the onions taste mild rather than harsh. Skipping or shortening the soak leaves the onions pungent.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, pepper, 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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