Name: Cabbage Salad
Ingredients: 1 stalk celery, chopped; 3 shallots, chopped; 4 boiled eggs, chopped; 4 cups chopped cabbage; 1 cup hot vinegar; 1 teaspoon mustard seed; salt to taste; pepper to taste

Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the celery, shallots, and boiled eggs.
In a large bowl, combine the chopped celery, shallots, boiled eggs, and cabbage.

Dress and serve

In a separate bowl, mix the hot vinegar, mustard seed, salt, and pepper.
Pour the dressing over the salad and toss to combine.

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.

Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together859 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage: Forms the bulk of the salad and provides crisp texture.
Eggs: Add richness and body to the salad through their chopped yolks and whites.
Hot vinegar: Provides acidity that brightens the salad and softens the cabbage slightly.
Shallots: Add a mild, sharp onion flavour.
Celery: Adds crunch and a fresh, slightly savoury taste.

Swap the celery

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

Tarragonfits better
Capersfits better
Dillfits better
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, egg, cabbage, vinegar, mustard, 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.