Name: Salad of Celery, Cabbage, and Beets
Ingredients: equal quantities of celery; equal quantities of cold slaw; pickled beets, finely chopped; remoulade sauce or salad dressing

Why it works: Celery and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,360 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Salad of Celery, Cabbage, and Beets

Ingredients

equal quantities of celery
equal quantities of cold slaw
pickled beets, finely chopped
remoulade sauce or salad dressing

Directions

Make the salad

Combine equal amounts of chopped celery and cold slaw in a bowl.
Add finely chopped pickled beets and mix well.
Refrigerate for a short time.

Dress and serve

Just before serving, add remoulade sauce or salad dressing and mix well.
Serve very cold.

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.

Celery + saucetop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,360 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery: Adds crisp texture and fresh, mild crunch to the salad.
Cold slaw: Provides the main cabbage base and crisp, moist body to the salad.
Pickled beets: Add sweet-sour flavour and a bright colour to the salad.
Remoulade sauce or salad dressing: Adds creaminess and moisture that binds the vegetables together.

The step that matters

Add the dressing just before serving. Dressing added too early draws water out of the cabbage and celery through osmosis, leaving the salad limp and watery. Adding it at the last moment keeps the vegetables crisp.

“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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Salad of Celery, Cabbage, and Beets