Name: Cabbage and Celery Salad
Ingredients: 1 cup salad dressing; ½ tablespoon salt; ½ tablespoon mustard; 1 cup sugar; 1 egg, slightly beaten; 2½ tablespoons butter; equal parts fine cut celery and shredded cabbage

Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cabbage and Celery Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Mix equal parts of fine cut celery and shredded cabbage in a bowl.
In a separate bowl, combine salad dressing, salt, mustard, sugar, beaten egg, and butter.

Dress and serve

Pour the dressing mixture over the celery and cabbage, 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.

Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Celery + cabbagetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,840 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 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

Egg: Thickens the dressing as it cooks and helps it bind into a creamy, cohesive coating.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the tang of the dressing.
Salad dressing: Provides the main flavor base and moisture that coats the vegetables.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, sugar, egg, butter, celery):

Horseradishfits better
Chivefits better
Lettucefits better
Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, sugar, egg, butter, celery. 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.