Name: Red Vegetable Salad
Ingredients: 1 pint cold-boiled potatoes; 1 pint cold-boiled beets; 1 pint uncooked red cabbage; 6 tablespoons oil; 8 tablespoons red vinegar (from pickled beets); 2 teaspoons salt (if vegetables were not cooked in salted water); ½ teaspoon pepper

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 ↓

Red Vegetable Salad

Ingredients

1 pint cold-boiled potatoes
1 pint cold-boiled beets
1 pint uncooked red cabbage
6 tablespoons oil
8 tablespoons red vinegar (from pickled beets)
2 teaspoons salt (if vegetables were not cooked in salted water)
½ teaspoon pepper

Directions

Prepare

Slice the potatoes thinly.
Chop the beets finely.
Slice the cabbage as thin as possible.

Assemble and rest

Mix all ingredients together.
Let the salad stand in a cold place for one hour 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.

Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together275 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 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

Potatoes: Provide the bulk and soft body of the salad.
Beets: Supply the red colour and an earthy sweetness to the salad.
Red cabbage: Adds crisp texture and extra colour to the salad.
Oil: Adds fat and carries flavour through the salad.
Red vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the oil.

The step that matters

Let the salad stand for one hour. Resting in a cold place lets the dressing soak into the sliced vegetables, so the flavours blend and the salad tastes evenly seasoned rather than sharp on top and flat underneath.

Swap the potato

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

Mustardfits better
Radishfits better
Capsicumfits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, vinegar, 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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Red Vegetable Salad