Name: Winter Salat — Red Cabbage and Celery
Ingredients: 1 hard, solid red cabbage; 1-2 roots of celery; coarse sea salt; oil; vinegar

Why it works: Cabbage and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,840 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Winter Salat — Red Cabbage and Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage.
Quarter and wash the cabbage well, then drain it.
Separate the leaves, cut out the thin stalks and ribs, and shred the rest finely.
Prepare and chop the tender parts of the celery.

Assemble

Mix the celery with the cabbage and garnish with green celery tops.

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 + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,840 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + vinegartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,627 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Red cabbage: Forms the bulk of the salad and provides its crisp, fibrous texture once shredded finely.
Celery: Adds a crisp, fresh crunch and a mild savory aroma to the shredded cabbage.