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Salad

Sauerkraut Salad, German Style

A cold salad of sauerkraut and shredded red cabbage with butter, vinegar, horseradish, chervil, onions, olives, and beets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Sauerkraut Salad, German Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauerkraut

  1. Parboil the sauerkraut for 20 minutes.

  2. Drain the sauerkraut and rinse it with cold water.

  3. Drain again using a napkin.

Cook the red cabbage

  1. Cut the red cabbage into fine shreds.

  2. Place the shredded red cabbage in a saucepan with butter and add vinegar.

  3. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes, then drain the cabbage mixture.

Prepare the onion

  1. Chop the onion.

  2. Boil the onion for 1 minute, then immerse it in cold water and drain.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a bowl, combine sauerkraut, red cabbage, onion, horseradish, and chervil.

  2. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and vinegar.

  3. Mix the salad well.

  4. Arrange the salad in a bowl.

  5. Garnish with olives and beets.

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. Onion + horseradishtop 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
Provides the main body and sour flavor of the salad.
Red cabbage
Adds crisp texture and color, and its shreds soften gently in the butter and vinegar.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor when the red cabbage is cooked.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salad and balances the sweetness of the cabbage.
White onion
Adds sharp aromatic flavor, which boiling and cold water soften.
Horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent heat that gives the salad its bite.

The step that matters

Drain the sauerkraut twice after parboiling. Excess water dilutes the dressing and makes the salad soggy, so draining and blotting the sauerkraut dry lets the vinegar and seasoning cling and keeps the texture crisp.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, butter, vinegar, horseradish, chervil, pepper, olive. 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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