Name: Ham Salad
Ingredients: 1 pint cold boiled ham, diced; 1 pint firm white cabbage, shaved; 2 small cucumber pickles, chopped fine; 2 pickled beets or onions, chopped fine; Mustard dressing, to taste

Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ham Salad

Ingredients

1 pint cold boiled ham, diced
1 pint firm white cabbage, shaved
2 small cucumber pickles, chopped fine
2 pickled beets or onions, chopped fine
Mustard dressing, to taste

Directions

Prepare

Dice the cold boiled ham.
Shave the firm white cabbage.
Chop the cucumber pickles and pickled beets or onions finely.

Assemble and serve

On a salad platter, arrange a bed of cabbage.
Place the diced ham in the center.
Sprinkle with chopped cucumber and onions.
Pour a strong mustard dressing over the salad.

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.

Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together722 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled ham: Provides the main savoury, meaty body of the salad.
Firm white cabbage: Forms the crisp base that gives the salad its crunch and bulk.
Cucumber pickles: Adds sharp acidity and a crisp, tangy contrast to the ham.
Pickled beets or onions: Adds acidity and tangy flavour that balances the rich ham.