Name: Beet Salad
Ingredients: 3 good-sized beets; 1 small head of cabbage; ½ cup sugar; 2 tablespoons mustard; coarse sea salt to taste; cold vinegar to cover

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 ↓

Beet Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Boil the beets until tender, then skin and chop them finely.
Chop the cabbage finely.

Combine and dress

Mix the chopped beets and cabbage together.
Add salt to taste, sugar, and mustard.
Cover the mixture with cold vinegar.

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).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,424 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Beets: Provide the main body, sweetness and earthy colour of the salad.
Cabbage: Adds crunch and bulk that holds texture against the soft beets.
Sugar: Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Mustard: Adds pungent flavour that complements the sweet beets and sharp vinegar.
Vinegar: Supplies acidity that preserves and brightens the salad.