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Salad

Corn Salad

A preserved salad of sweet corn, onions, green peppers, cabbage, vinegar, mustard, sugar, salt, flour, water, and turmeric.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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

Prepare and cook the vegetables

  1. Chop the onions, green peppers, and cabbage.

  2. Cook the chopped vegetables in a pot for 15 minutes.

Combine and simmer

  1. Add the sweet corn and all other ingredients to the pot.

  2. Cook for an additional 30 minutes.

Store

  1. Pour the mixture into jars for storage.

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.

  1. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Onion + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet corn
Provides bulk and a natural sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aroma as they soften during cooking.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a tender-crisp texture to the mixture.
Vinegar
Supplies acidity that gives the salad its tang and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the mixture becomes a spoonable relish.

The step that matters

Adding the sweet corn and all other ingredients to the pot. Flour clumps when added to hot liquid unless it is first mixed smooth, and it thickens unevenly if the mixture is not stirred well. Stirring keeps the starch dispersed so the salad thickens evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

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