Name: Macedoine of Vegetables
Ingredients: equal quantities of carrots; equal quantities of turnips; equal quantities of peas; equal quantities of French beans; equal quantities of cucumber; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; butter to taste

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Macedoine of Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the carrots, turnips, peas, French beans, and cucumber into small dice.

Cook and season

Boil the diced vegetables until tender.
Mix all the vegetables together.
Add pepper, coarse sea salt, and butter to taste.
Serve hot or cold.

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.

Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + beanstop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together400 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + beanstop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,443 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Turnip + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together226 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beans + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together602 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

Carrots: Provide sweetness, colour and a firm texture once boiled.
Turnips: Add a mild, slightly peppery flavour and a tender bite when cooked.
Peas: Add sweetness and a soft texture to the medley.
French beans: Contribute a crisp-tender texture and fresh, green flavour.
Cucumber: Adds a cool, mild freshness and moisture to the mixture.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, beans, cucumber, pepper, butter):

Lentilsfits better
Chickpeafits better
Chestnutfits better
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, beans, cucumber, pepper, butter. 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.