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Salad

Green Salad

A salad of celery, radishes, beetroot, lettuce, hard‑boiled eggs, dressed with vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Beetroot and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 678 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Green Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the celery and radishes.

  2. Slice the cooked beetroot.

  3. In a bowl, combine the chopped celery, radishes, and beetroot.

Dress and serve

  1. Add vinegar, coarse sea salt, pepper, and castor sugar to taste.

  2. Arrange the salad high in the center of a serving dish.

  3. Garnish with the heart of the lettuce, sliced hard-boiled eggs, and beetroot.

  4. Sprinkle with tarragon, chervil, or minced parsley.

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. Beetroot + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together678 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beetroot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Radish + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Provides crisp texture and a fresh, mild flavor to the salad.
Radishes
Add crunch and a peppery bite that contrasts with the sweeter beetroot.
Cooked beetroot
Adds earthy sweetness and a vivid color to the salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the vegetables and balances the sugar.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and soft texture as a garnish.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (radish, beetroot, vinegar, pepper, egg, lettuce, tarragon):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against radish, beetroot, vinegar, pepper, egg, lettuce, tarragon. 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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