Name: Chopped Cabbage with Sauce
Ingredients: 1 cabbage; ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; 1 cup drawn butter; 1 tablespoon celery vinegar; 1 teaspoon prepared mustard

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 ↓

Chopped Cabbage with Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Quarter the cabbage and boil it in hot salted water until tender.
Drain the cabbage and chop it.
Season with pepper and salt, then drain again, pressing out excess water.
Place the cabbage in a hot dish.
Pour over the drawn butter mixed with strained ham liquor, celery vinegar, and prepared mustard.
Serve 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.

Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

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

Swap the cabbage

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

Horseradishfits better
Lettucefits better
Radishfits about as well
Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, celery, vinegar, mustard. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.