Name: Cabbage Salad
Ingredients: cabbage, very thinly sliced; 1 green pepper, diced; 1 Spanish pepper, diced; 1 stalk of celery, shredded; slices of cucumber; French dressing; lettuce leaves

Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

Thinly slice the cabbage.
Dice the green and Spanish peppers.
Shred the celery.
Slice the cucumber.

Assemble and serve

Combine all vegetables in a bowl.
Cover with French dressing.
Serve on lettuce leaves.

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 + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,409 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together622 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage: Forms the crisp, bulky base of the salad.
French dressing: Adds acidity and fat that moisten and flavour the vegetables.
Celery: Adds crunch and a fresh, watery texture.
Cucumber: Adds cool moisture and crisp texture.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, pepper, cucumber, lettuce):

Tarragonfits better
Dillfits better
Capersfits about as well
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, pepper, cucumber, lettuce. 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.