Name: Vegetable Salad
Ingredients: 1 small cabbage; 1 chopped beetroot; some sliced boiled potatoes; some capers; oil; vinegar; pepper; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Beetroot and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 231 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetable Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Boil the cabbage until tender and let it cool.
Cut the cabbage into pieces.

Assemble and dress

Add the chopped beetroot, sliced boiled potatoes, and capers.
Dress the salad with oil, vinegar, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

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.

Beetroot + caperstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together231 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Cabbage + beetroottop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together377 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beetroot + potatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together330 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Potato + caperstop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together224 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage: Forms the bulk of the salad and becomes tender through boiling.
Beetroot: Adds sweetness and colour to the salad.
Potatoes: Add body and a mild, starchy texture to the salad.
Capers: Add a sharp, briny acidity that contrasts the vegetables.

Swap the potato

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

Lettucefits better
Mustardfits better
Horseradishfits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, beetroot, capers, 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.