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Salad

Salmagundy

A cold salad of chopped chicken or veal, eggs, anchovies, beetroot, pickled cabbage, ham, tongue, parsley, and optional onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beetroot and cabbage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 377 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salmagundy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the white part of cold chicken or veal.

  2. Chop the hard-boiled egg yolks and whites.

  3. Chop the parsley, anchovies, beetroot, red pickled cabbage, ham, and grated tongue.

Assemble and serve

  1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl, adding onion if desired.

  2. Serve in a tea-cup, saucer, or similar dish.

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. Beetroot + cabbagetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together377 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + beetroottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together745 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  4. Beetroot + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,261 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold chicken or veal
Provides the main body and meaty bulk of the salad.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a soft, crumbly texture.
Hard-boiled egg whites
Add firm, mild bulk that balances the richer yolks.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth to the mixture.
Beetroot
Adds earthy sweetness and a vivid colour.
Red pickled cabbage
Adds sharp acidity and crunch that cut through the richness.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, parsley, beetroot, cabbage, ham):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, parsley, beetroot, cabbage, ham. 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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