Name: Corn Salad
Ingredients: 12 large ears of corn, cut from cob; 1 cabbage, chopped fine; 1 large red pepper, chopped fine; 1 cup sugar; 1 quart vinegar; 2 tablespoons salt; ½ pound mustard

Why it works: Cabbage and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Corn Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Combine corn, cabbage, red pepper, sugar, vinegar, salt, and mustard in a large pot.
Cook slowly for 1.5 hours.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,645 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).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,324 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn: Provides the main bulk and sweet, tender texture of the salad.
Cabbage: Adds crunch and body that holds up during long cooking.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the salad its tang.
Mustard: Adds sharp, pungent flavour that rounds out the sweet and sour notes.

Swap the cabbage

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

Capsicumfits better
Horseradishfits better
Lettucefits about as well
Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, pepper, sugar, vinegar, mustard. 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.