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RElish of Cabbage

A cabbage relish made with shredded cabbage, horseradish, cider vinegar, eggs, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 481 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

RElish of Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shred the cabbage finely and place it in a bowl.

  2. Add horseradish to the cabbage.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, bring cider vinegar to a boil.

  2. Beat the eggs with salt, then stir into the boiling vinegar until cooked.

  3. Pour the egg mixture over the cabbage and mix well.

Chill and serve

  1. Let it cool and refrigerate before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Horseradish + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Cabbage + cidertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together306 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexan-1-ol (green, grassy).

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 relish and provides crisp texture.
Horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent heat that gives the relish its bite.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens flavor and helps keep the relish tangy.
Eggs
Cooked into the hot vinegar to thicken it and bind the relish with a creamy coating.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs into the boiling vinegar. If the egg mixture is added too fast or the vinegar is not hot enough, the eggs scramble into lumps instead of cooking smoothly. Stirring steadily while adding the eggs keeps the sauce smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (horseradish, cider, vinegar, egg):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against horseradish, cider, vinegar, egg. 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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