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Salad

Beetroot, Dressed

A salad of boiled beetroot dressed with anchovies, eggs, capers, shallot, anchovy essence, lemon juice, pepper, cayenne, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beetroot, Dressed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the beetroot until tender, then peel and slice it.

  2. Chop the anchovies, hard-boiled eggs, capers, and shallot finely.

Dress and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped ingredients with anchovy essence, lemon juice, pepper, cayenne, and salt to taste.

  2. Serve the dressed beetroot on a plate with brown bread and butter on the side.

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. Capers + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Beetroot + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together231 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beetroot + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Capers + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Beetroot
Provides the main body, earthy flavour and colour of the dish.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the dressing.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the dressing.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny bite that cuts through the richness.
Shallot
Adds a mild sharpness and aromatic background to the dressing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavours and balances richness.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beetroot, egg, capers, shallot, anchovy, bread, butter):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Pumpkinfits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beetroot, egg, capers, shallot, anchovy, bread, butter. 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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