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Salad

Beetroot Salad

A salad of boiled beetroot dressed with olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beetroot Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beetroot

  1. Boil and peel the beetroot.

  2. Thinly slice the beetroot.

  3. For a decorative touch, cut beetroot into strips or fancy shapes.

Dress and serve

  1. Dress with olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

  2. Serve alone or with shredded celery as a garnish.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Beetroot + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together652 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beetroot + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  4. Olive + celerytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Beetroot
Forms the main body of the salad and provides its earthy flavour and colour.
Olive oil
Adds fat and smooth mouthfeel, and carries the flavour of the dressing across the slices.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the earthy sweetness of the beetroot.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beetroot, olive, vinegar, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beetroot, olive, 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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