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Large Macedoine Garniture

A garnish of assorted young vegetables, lightly cooked and tossed with butter and cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Large Macedoine Garniture

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut carrots and turnips into fancy shapes, parboil, and glaze them.

  2. Scallop cucumbers and toss them in butter.

  3. Cut string beans into diamond shapes, boil in lightly salted water, then immerse in cold water.

  4. Boil Brussels sprouts and peas, treating them the same as string beans.

  5. Use only the flower buds of cauliflower and broccoli, keeping them in small bunches.

  6. Parboil and glaze the onions.

  7. Keep mushrooms white and cut tops into crescent shapes.

  8. Cut cooked artichoke bottoms into quarters.

Combine and serve

  1. Cook all vegetables separately, then combine them in a flat saucepan.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, add a little cream sauce, and toss gently over the fire.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a glossy coating that carries flavor across the vegetables.
Cream sauce
Adds richness and moisture, binding the vegetables into a creamy garnish.

The step that matters

Cooking each vegetable separately. Vegetables cook at different rates and release different amounts of water and starch, so cooking them apart keeps each one tender and properly colored. Combining them only at the end prevents overcooking and mushiness.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, cream, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, cream, sauce. 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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