Name: Picnic Salad
Ingredients: 1 quart finely chopped cabbage; ⅔ cup sour cream; 2 well-beaten eggs; sugar to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; pepper to taste; mustard to taste; 1 tablespoon celery seed (optional); a little vinegar

Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Picnic Salad

Ingredients

Directions

In a large bowl, combine the finely chopped cabbage, sour cream, and beaten eggs.
Season with sugar, coarse sea salt, pepper, and mustard to taste.
If you don't have celery, add 1 tablespoon of celery seed.
Stir in a little vinegar to taste.
Mix well and refrigerate.

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.

Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,840 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, bulky base of the salad.
Sour cream: Adds moisture and a tangy richness that binds the salad.
Eggs: Bind with the sour cream to give the dressing body and a creamy texture.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cream, egg, sugar, pepper, mustard, vinegar):

Tarragonfits better
Dillfits about as well
Celerythe original
Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cream, egg, sugar, pepper, mustard, 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.