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Salad

Corn Salad

A pickled corn salad with cabbage, celery, peppers, mustard, turmeric, and vinegar, sweetened with brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard 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 ↓

Corn Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the corn, cabbage, celery, and peppers.

Cook

  1. Mix all ingredients together in a large pot.

  2. Boil the mixture for 20 minutes.

Jar

  1. Pour into Mason jars while hot.

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 + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Turmeric + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. 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

Corn
Provides sweet, tender pieces that give the salad its main body and crunch.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture that holds up through boiling and keeps the salad firm.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the salad its tangy flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Celery
Contributes crunch and a fresh, slightly savoury flavour.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that deepens the vinegar dressing.

The step that matters

Pour into Mason jars while hot. Filling jars while the mixture is still hot helps drive air out and creates a seal as it cools, which matters for keeping the salad stable in storage.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, sugar, vinegar, celery, turmeric, pepper, mustard. 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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