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Salad

Cabbage with Cream Dressing

A finely chopped cabbage salad dressed with salt, sugar, vinegar, and sour cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cabbage with Cream Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cabbage very finely.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and sugar, then pound well with a wooden masher.

Dress and finish

  1. Mix in vinegar according to its strength.

  2. Slowly stir in the sour cream until well combined.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Vinegar + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,064 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cabbage + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,037 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

Cabbage
Forms the body of the salad, and pounding it softens the leaves so they absorb the dressing.
Sour cream
Adds fat and creaminess, coating the cabbage and giving the dressing its smooth body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salad and balances the sweetness and richness.

The step that matters

Pounding the cabbage with salt and sugar. Salt draws water out of the cabbage and pounding bruises its cell walls, so the leaves soften and turn tender. Skipping or under-doing this leaves the salad crunchy and watery.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, cream):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, cream. 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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