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Salad

Spanish Salad

A salad of boiled haricot beans, tomatoes, radishes, cress, parsley, dressed with oil, vinegar, tarragon vinegar, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spanish Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Toss the boiled haricot beans in salad oil and vinegar.

  2. Pile the beans in the center of a dish.

Arrange and serve

  1. Arrange slices of tomato around the beans.

  2. Make a border with cress and radishes.

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. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Beans + radishtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Haricot beans
Form the main body of the salad and provide its substance.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and a fresh, slightly acidic flavour around the beans.
Radishes
Add crisp texture and a peppery bite to the border.
Cress
Adds a sharp, peppery aroma and fresh green contrast to the border.
Salad oil
Coats the beans, carrying flavour and adding richness and smoothness.

Swap the radish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, tomato, vinegar, tarragon, pepper, parsley):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Radishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, tomato, vinegar, tarragon, pepper, parsley. 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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