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Salad

Mixed Salads

A salad of cold sliced Irish potatoes, beets, apples or red cabbage, salted cucumbers, dressed with oil, sea salt, lemon juice, and beet juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 481 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mixed Salads

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine equal portions of cold sliced Irish potatoes and beets in a bowl.

  2. Add sliced apples or finely chopped red cabbage and salted cucumbers.

  3. Gently mix all ingredients together without breaking the slices.

  4. Drizzle with oil, coarse sea salt, lemon juice, and beet juice.

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. Potato + cucumbertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Potato + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the bulk and a mild, starchy body that holds the salad together.
Beets
Add earthy sweetness and a deep color that bleeds into the juices.
Apples
Add crisp texture and a bright, slightly sweet contrast to the earthy vegetables.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness of the beets.

The step that matters

Gently mix all ingredients together without breaking the slices. Cold cooked potatoes and beets are fragile and crumble easily when handled roughly. Gentle folding keeps the slices intact, which preserves the salad's appearance and texture.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, cucumber, lemon):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, cucumber, lemon. 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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