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Salad

Fresh Vegetable Salad

A salad of chopped tomatoes, cabbage, celery, sweet pepper, lettuce, parsley, and paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fresh Vegetable Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes, cabbage, celery, and sweet pepper into small pieces.

  2. Tear the lettuce into bite-sized pieces.

Assemble and serve

  1. Combine all the vegetables in a large bowl.

  2. Sprinkle with parsley and paprika.

  3. Toss gently to mix and serve immediately.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

  4. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 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

Tomatoes
Provide juice and bulk, adding moisture and fresh acidity to the salad.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and body that holds up against the other vegetables.
Celery
Contributes crunch and a fresh, mildly savory flavour.
Lettuce
Forms the leafy base, adding delicate crispness and volume.

The step that matters

Serve immediately after tossing. Salt-free vegetables release water and lettuce wilts once dressed or left standing, so the salad loses crispness quickly. Serving right after tossing keeps the texture crisp.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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