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Salad

Winter Salad

A cabbage, beetroot, celery, egg, horseradish, brown sugar, mustard, vinegar, and butter dressing salad served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Winter Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, break the egg and add the vinegar and butter.

  2. Stir over low heat until the mixture thickens, but do not let it boil.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a large bowl, combine the cabbage, beetroot, celery, minced eggs, horseradish, brown sugar, and dry mustard.

  2. Pour the dressing over the salad, toss lightly, and serve 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.

  1. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Beetroot + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Beetroot + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 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

Egg
Thickens the dressing as it cooks gently, giving it a creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the sweetness of the sugar and beetroot.
Butter
Adds richness and smoothness to the cooked dressing.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Horseradish
Adds pungent heat that gives the salad its bite.

The step that matters

Thickening the dressing over low heat. Egg proteins set gradually as they warm. If the mixture boils, the eggs can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy dressing instead of a smooth, thickened one.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, beetroot, egg, horseradish, sugar, mustard, vinegar):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, beetroot, egg, horseradish, sugar, mustard, vinegar. 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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