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Macedoine of Vegetables

A chilled salad of diced turnips, asparagus, French beans, peas, and beans, dressed with oil, tarragon vinegar, nutmeg, pepper, chervil, shallot, and aspic jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 292 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Macedoine of Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the turnips until firm, then cool.

Make the salad

  1. In a basin, combine the cooled turnips, asparagus points, French beans, peas, and beans.

  2. Season with oil, tarragon vinegar, nutmeg, pepper, chervil, shallot, and aspic jelly.

  3. Toss gently to mix the ingredients.

Serve

  1. Serve the macedoine in a pyramid shape within a croustade.

  2. Optionally, add a border of small cauliflower pieces around the croustade.

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. Asparagus + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together292 recipes

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

  2. Asparagus + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together138 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + asparagustop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + tarragontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Turnips
Provide firm, mild vegetable pieces that hold their shape after boiling and cooling.
Aspic jelly
Sets around the vegetables as it cools, binding the salad and adding moisture.
Oil
Adds fat and a smooth coating that carries flavour across the vegetables.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and a sharp, aromatic note that brightens the vegetables.

The step that matters

Boil the turnips until firm, then cool. Overcooked turnips turn soft and mushy and release more starch and water, so they break down in the salad. Cooling them before mixing keeps the pieces intact and stops the oil and aspic from warming and loosening.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, asparagus, beans, tarragon, vinegar, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, asparagus, beans, tarragon, vinegar, nutmeg, 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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