Skip to main content
Salad

Cabbage and Potato Salad

A salad of cold boiled potatoes, pickled red cabbage, white celery, pepper, coarse sea salt, and mayonnaise or salad dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and pepper 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 ↓

Cabbage and Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and mix

  1. Slice equal quantities of cold boiled potatoes, pickled red cabbage, and finely shred white celery.

  2. Mix thoroughly in a salad bowl.

Season and dress

  1. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Pour mayonnaise or any good salad dressing over the mixture.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  4. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  5. Potato + cabbagetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together275 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

Cold boiled potatoes
Provide the bulk and soft, starchy body of the salad.
Pickled red cabbage
Adds sharp acidity and crunch that cuts through the richness of the dressing.
White celery
Contributes crisp texture and a fresh, mild savoury flavour.
Mayonnaise or salad dressing
Adds fat and moisture, binding the vegetables and coating them in a creamy dressing.

The step that matters

Mix thoroughly. Potatoes are easily broken and celery and cabbage release liquid. Mixing gently but evenly spreads the seasoning and dressing through every piece, so no portion is bland or greasy.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, celery, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, celery, 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.

You might also like

Cabbage DressingCabbage Dressing9 recipesChicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipes