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Salad

Vegetable Salad, Amerioan Style

A mixed vegetable salad with cooked artichoke bottoms, celery, celeriac, potatoes, carrots, beets, and beans, dressed with oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Vegetable Salad, Amerioan Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely slice equal quantities of cooked artichoke bottoms, celery, celeriac, potatoes, carrots, and beets, keeping pieces about the same size.

  2. Place the sliced vegetables in a salad bowl and add shelled beans.

Dress and chill

  1. Season with salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar, then mix gently.

  2. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for one hour to allow the salad to macerate.

Serve

  1. Before serving, add a little more oil and vinegar, and dress the salad in the bowl.

  2. Garnish as desired.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Artichoke + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + beanstop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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

Artichoke bottoms
Provide the tender, mild base that gives the salad its main body.
Potatoes
Add starchy bulk and a soft texture that absorbs some of the dressing.
Beets
Contribute sweetness and colour to the mixed vegetables.
Shelled beans
Add creamy texture and substance alongside the sliced vegetables.
Oil
Carries flavour and adds richness and moisture to the vegetables.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salad and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Chilling to macerate. Resting the salad in the refrigerator lets the dressing soak into the cut vegetables, so the flavour penetrates evenly. Pieces of similar size keep the absorption and texture uniform.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, celery, carrot, beans, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, celery, carrot, beans, 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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