Name: Cauliflower Salad
Ingredients: cooked cauliflower; green beans; red cabbage; French Dressing; Mayonnaise Dressing

Why it works: Cauliflower and cabbage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 305 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cauliflower Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Slice the cooked green beans lengthwise and mix with French Dressing.
Chop the red cabbage and mix with French Dressing.
Place the cooked cauliflower on a platter and cover it with Mayonnaise Dressing.
Drain the beans and arrange them around the cauliflower.
Drain the cabbage and arrange it around the beans.

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.

Cauliflower + cabbagetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together305 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cauliflower + green beanstop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together75 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Green beans + cabbagetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together52 recipes

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