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Salad

Cabbage, Celery and Nut Salad

A salad of shredded cabbage and celery mixed with walnuts, seasoned with salt, pepper, vinegar, and served with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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, Celery and Nut Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the cabbage in cold water until crisp.

  2. Thinly shred the cabbage and celery.

  3. Chop the butternuts or walnuts.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the cabbage, celery, and nuts in a bowl.

  2. Dress lightly with salt, pepper, and vinegar.

  3. Serve with mayonnaise.

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. Celery + butternuttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Provides the crisp, crunchy body of the salad, which soaking in cold water helps achieve.
Celery
Adds a crisp, fresh crunch and a mild savory note to the salad.
Butternuts or english walnuts
Add a rich, toasty flavor and a contrasting bite to the crisp vegetables.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the mayonnaise.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess that coats the vegetables and carries the dressing.

The step that matters

Soak the cabbage until crisp. Cabbage that is not soaked long enough stays limp and soft. Cold water firms the cell walls, so the shreds stay crunchy once dressed and combined.

Swap the butternut

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Butternutthe original

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