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

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

Directions

Prepare

Chop the celery, beetroot, and cold potatoes into bite-sized pieces.
In a bowl, combine the chopped vegetables.

Dress and serve

Add salt, vinegar, and oil, then toss to coat evenly.

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).
Beetroot + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,630 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Celery + vinegartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,627 recipes

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