Skip to main content
Salad

German Salad

A cold salad of sliced potatoes, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, apples, and beetroot dressed with olive oil, vinegar, parsley, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

German Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold vegetables into small pieces.

  2. In a bowl, mix the olive oil, vinegar, chopped parsley, black pepper, and coarse sea salt.

Assemble and serve

  1. Combine the vegetables with the dressing.

  2. Garnish with sliced sour apples and pickled beetroot before serving.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Cauliflower + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together233 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and hold their shape when sliced and chilled.
Olive oil
Carries fat-soluble flavour and gives the dressing a smooth, rich body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the fat.
Sour apples
Add tartness and a crisp contrast to the soft vegetables.

The step that matters

Combine the vegetables with the dressing while they are still cold. Cold potatoes and vegetables absorb the dressing more evenly and hold their shape, while warm ones can turn mushy and break down. Mixing the oil and vinegar first helps the dressing coat the pieces rather than pool at the bottom of the bowl.

Swap the brussels sprouts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, cauliflower, olive, vinegar, parsley, pepper, apple):

  1. Broccolifits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Brussels sproutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, cauliflower, olive, vinegar, parsley, pepper, apple. 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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes