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Salad

Beet and Cabbage Salad

A salad of shredded cabbage and cubed beets, seasoned with salt, pepper, onion, and French dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beet and Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak shredded cabbage in ice water for 1 hour, then drain.

  2. Cut beets into cubes.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix the drained cabbage with the cubed beets.

  2. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and minced onion.

  3. Serve with French dressing.

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

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

  2. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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
Soaking in ice water firms and crisps the shreds, giving the salad a crunchy texture.
Beets
Provide the main body, colour and sweet earthy flavour of the salad.
French dressing
Adds moisture and a tangy, sweet-sharp flavour that coats the vegetables.

The step that matters

Soaking the cabbage in ice water. Soaking cold firms the cabbage cells so the shreds stay crisp rather than limp. Draining well matters too, since excess water would dilute the dressing and make the salad soggy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Cauliflowerfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, 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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