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Salad

Mixed Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, carrots, turnips, and beetroot dressed with oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and beetroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 336 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mixed Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the vegetables into small dice.

  2. Place them in a salad bowl.

Dress and serve

  1. Mix the oil and vinegar with pepper and salt.

  2. Pour the dressing over the vegetables.

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. Turnip + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together336 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + beetroottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together699 recipes

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

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

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

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

Boiled potatoes
Provides a firm, starchy body that adds bulk to the salad.
Carrots
Add mild sweetness and a firm, crisp-tender texture.
Turnips
Add a firm texture and a mild, slightly peppery flavour.
Beetroot
Adds sweetness and a deep colour that tints the whole salad.
Oil
Carries flavour and gives the dressing a rich, smooth mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet root vegetables and balances the oil.

The step that matters

Mixing the dressing just before pouring. Oil and vinegar separate on standing, so whisking them together right before pouring helps the dressing coat the diced vegetables evenly rather than pooling at the bottom of the bowl.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, beetroot, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, beetroot, vinegar, 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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