Name: Macedonian Salad
Ingredients: 1 boiled beetroot; 1 small onion; 1 root of celery; 1 boiled carrot; ½ cup boiled asparagus tops; 2 tablespoons cooked green peas; 12 boiled French beans; 1 cup mayonnaise dressing

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 ↓

Macedonian Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the beetroot, carrot, beans, and celery into small pieces.
Chop the onion very finely.

Assemble and serve

Mix all the vegetables together carefully.
Add the mayonnaise and serve immediately.

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.

Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Asparagus + beanstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together292 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beetroot + beanstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together215 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Beetroot + asparagustop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together116 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Asparagus + peastop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together808 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise dressing: Binds the vegetables and adds richness and moisture.
Boiled beetroot: Provides colour and a mild sweetness to the salad.
Boiled carrot: Adds sweetness and a tender, moist bite.
Celery: Adds crisp texture and a fresh, slightly savoury flavour.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beetroot, celery, carrot, asparagus, peas, beans):

Lettucefits better
Turnipfits better
Parsnipfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beetroot, celery, carrot, asparagus, peas, beans. 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.