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Salad

Salad, German

A German salad combining sauerkraut, pickled cabbage, horseradish, chervil, onions, oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and chervil share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Salad, German

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Boil the sauerkraut in water for 5 minutes, then drain and cool.

  2. Soak the red pickled cabbage in cold water, then drain and shred it.

Mix the salad

  1. Mix the sauerkraut and shredded cabbage thoroughly.

  2. Add the grated horseradish, chopped chervil, and minced onions to the mixture.

  3. Just before serving, toss the salad with oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt.

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. Horseradish + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together20 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Cabbage + cherviltop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together113 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Sauerkraut
Forms the base of the salad and gives it its tangy, sour character.
Red pickled cabbage
Adds extra shredded body and a milder pickled flavour to the salad.
Grated horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent heat that cuts through the richness of the oil.
Oil
Coats the shreds, adding fat and a smoother mouthfeel to the salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the sour cabbage.
Minced onions
Adds sharp aromatic flavour that deepens the savoury taste of the salad.

The step that matters

Boil the sauerkraut and cool it fully before mixing. Brief boiling mellows the sauerkraut's sharpness, and cooling it before mixing keeps the oil and vinegar from being diluted or the salad from turning watery.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, horseradish, chervil, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, horseradish, chervil, vinegar, 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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