Name: Cabbage Salad
Ingredients: 1 cup fresh cabbage, chopped; ½ sweet red pepper, chopped; ½ dozen Malaga grapes, seeded and chilled; 1/2 cup cream; 2 teaspoons sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt; ⅛ teaspoon paprika; ½ cup vinegar; Lettuce leaves for serving

Why it works: Cabbage and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 622 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, mix the chopped cabbage and sweet red pepper.
Chill the mixture until ready to serve.
Just before serving, add the seeded and chilled Malaga grapes.

Make the dressing and serve

In a separate bowl, whip together the cream, sugar, salt, paprika, and vinegar.
Serve the salad in lettuce leaves and drizzle with the 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.

Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together622 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Pepper + grapetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,909 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: Provides the crisp, crunchy base of the salad.
Cream: Adds richness and body to the dressing, softening the sharp vinegar.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Malaga grapes: Add juicy sweetness and contrast to the crunchy vegetables.

Swap the grape

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

Limefits better
Avocadofits better
Lemonfits better
Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, pepper, cream, sugar, vinegar, 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.