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Macedoine of Vegetables, American Style

A mixed vegetable dish simmered in butter and broth, finished with glazed onions and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Macedoine of Vegetables, American Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Melt butter and lightly fry the chopped onion in a saucepan.

  2. Parboil carrots, beets, parsnips, celeriac, and turnips separately for a few minutes, then drain.

Cook

  1. Add the parboiled vegetables to the saucepan with enough broth to cook them.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Cook the vegetables slowly until done.

  4. Prepare the small white glazed onions separately and add them to the vegetables.

Finish and serve

  1. Reduce the gravy in the saucepan, stir in the mustard, and pour it over the vegetables.

  2. Carefully dish them up.

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. Parsnip + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and flavor when it is melted and used to fry the onion.
Carrots
Provide sweetness and a firm texture that holds up to slow cooking.
Beets
Add sweetness and color to the dish.
Parsnips
Add sweetness and a tender, starchy body when cooked slowly.
Turnips
Add a mild, slightly peppery flavor and tender texture when cooked.
Mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the sweetness of the cooked vegetables.

The step that matters

Parboil the vegetables separately. Each vegetable cooks at a different rate, so parboiling them on their own before combining keeps firmer roots from turning mushy while softer ones finish cooking.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, carrot, parsnip, turnip, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, carrot, parsnip, turnip, pepper. 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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