Skip to main content
Main

A Nice Way to Cook Cabbage

A cabbage dish cooked in salted water and finished with a butter, vinegar, mustard, sugar, egg, and cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

A Nice Way to Cook Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the cabbage

  1. Cook the cabbage in salted water until tender.

Make the dressing

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add vinegar, mustard, and sugar to the butter.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Stir in the beaten egg and pour the mixture over the cabbage.

  5. Boil briefly, then add cream before removing from heat.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender when cooked in salted water.
Egg
Thickens the sauce as it cooks, giving it a creamy, coating texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce, giving it a smooth mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the sauce a sharp, tangy balance.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sauce's flavour and texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg without curdling. Egg proteins set when heated. If the mixture boils hard after the egg goes in, the egg can scramble and the sauce turns grainy instead of smooth and thick. Keep the heat gentle and add the cream before removing from heat.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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

More creamed cabbage recipes

Salad 7 See all 121 →

You might also like

Red CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipesCabbage DressingCabbage Dressing19 recipes