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Salad

Thanksgiving Salad

A cabbage salad with mayonnaise, celery, pickles, olives, herbs, and bell pepper, served in hollowed red cabbage leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Thanksgiving Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Trim and wash the white cabbage, cut it into quarters and slice very thin.

  2. Soak the white cabbage in ice water for two hours.

  3. Trim and wash the red cabbage.

  4. Remove the center of the red cabbage and keep the outer leaves intact.

  5. Chop the center of the red cabbage and soak it in ice water.

  6. Drain the white cabbage and celery, then dry them with a towel.

Make the dressing

  1. Prepare the mayonnaise and add 1 teaspoon of mustard to it for each pint.

  2. Shred the bell pepper.

  3. Mix the white cabbage, celery, and shredded bell pepper with the mayonnaise dressing.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill the hollowed red cabbage with the mixture, leaving space for the red cabbage mixture.

  2. Mix the chopped red cabbage with 1 cup of mayonnaise, olives, pickles, parsley, and chives.

  3. Fill the well of the red cabbage with this mixture.

  4. Garnish with capers.

  5. Serve on a plate with hearts of lettuce.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

White cabbage
Forms the crisp, bulk base of the salad and stays crunchy when thinly sliced and chilled.
Red cabbage
Serves as the edible bowl and adds colour and a mild crunch to the salad.
Mayonnaise
Binds the vegetables and adds richness and moisture to the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mildly savoury flavour.
Pickles
Add acidity and a tangy bite that balances the rich dressing.
Bell pepper
Adds sweetness and crunch to the mixture.

The step that matters

Drying the drained cabbage and celery. Excess water dilutes the mayonnaise dressing and makes the salad watery and loose, so the vegetables must be well dried before mixing.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, olive, chive, parsley, lemon, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, olive, chive, parsley, lemon, pepper. 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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