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Salad

Corn Salad

A salad of shredded cabbage, corn, peppers, mustard, and vinegar, sweetened with sugar and salted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Corn Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shred the cabbage, add salt, and let it stand to drain.

  2. Chop the peppers and cut the corn off the cobs.

  3. Stir the mustard into a little of the vinegar.

  4. If the vinegar is very sour, dilute it with a little water.

Cook and seal

  1. Mix all ingredients together and bring to a boil.

  2. Seal in cans or bottles.

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. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharp vinegar.
Cabbage
Provides the crisp, bulky body of the salad.
Ground mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that carries through the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and flavors the salad.

The step that matters

Diluting a very sour vinegar. Vinegar that is too acidic makes the salad harsh and sour-tasting. Adding a little water lowers the acidity and softens the flavor, so taste the vinegar before combining everything.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, sugar, pepper, mustard, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, 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.

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