Name: Combination Salad Without Meat
Ingredients: 1 small head cabbage, shredded; ½ cup English walnuts, chopped; 4 or 5 tart apples, diced; 1 tablespoon white onion, finely chopped; 5 or 6 cold, firm potatoes, diced; 2 stalks celery, finely diced; a pinch of cayenne pepper; mayonnaise dressing; lettuce leaves

Why it works: Walnut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 491 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Combination Salad Without Meat

Ingredients

1 small head cabbage, shredded
½ cup English walnuts, chopped
4 or 5 tart apples, diced
1 tablespoon white onion, finely chopped
5 or 6 cold, firm potatoes, diced
2 stalks celery, finely diced
a pinch of cayenne pepper
mayonnaise dressing
lettuce leaves

Directions

Make the salad

In a large bowl, combine the cabbage, walnuts, apples, onion, potatoes, celery, and cayenne pepper, then toss well with a silver or wooden fork.
Pour a generous quantity of mayonnaise dressing over the salad and mix gently.

Chill and serve

Chill the salad on ice for an hour.
Serve on lettuce leaves.

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.

Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together622 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 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: Forms the crisp, bulky base of the salad.
Potatoes: Add body and starch, giving the salad a heartier texture.
Apples: Add tart flavor and a crisp, juicy contrast to the creamy dressing.
Walnuts: Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavor.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and richness, binding the salad and carrying its flavor.

The step that matters

Chill the potatoes and salad thoroughly. Cold, firm potatoes hold their shape when tossed with dressing, while warm starch softens and turns mushy. Chilling also firms the mayonnaise so the salad stays cohesive and crisp.

Swap the apple

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

Avocadofits better
Limefits better
Lemonfits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, walnut, onion, potato, celery, pepper, lettuce. 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.

Cabbage Dressing9 recipes

Chicken Salad623 recipes

Salad Dressing491 recipes

Tomato Salad179 recipes

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Combination Salad Without Meat