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Salad

Cabbage Salad

A cabbage salad with walnuts, celery, vinegar, mustard, and a creamy dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard 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 Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop one cup walnuts, one small head of cabbage finely, and two heads of celery finely.

Make the dressing

  1. Put the chopped ingredients in a double boiler with one-half cup water and one-half cup vinegar and bring to a good boil.

  2. Beat one tablespoon sugar, one tablespoon flour, one tablespoon dry mustard, one teaspoon salt, pinch of black pepper, pinch of paprika, and mix well.

  3. Add the above mixture to the vinegar and cook until it thickens.

Finish and serve

  1. Cool and thin with whipped cream.

  2. Mix with cabbage just before serving.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

554Calories
18 gProtein
5 gFat
110 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Broccoli1 cup chopped (156g)55
Walnut1 walnut half (4g)26
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + cabbagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Walnut + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the dressing as it cooks, giving it body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances its richness.
Whipped cream (in the method)
Adds richness and a softer, lighter texture to the cooled dressing.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing until it thickens. Flour thickens only when the mixture is heated long enough to cook out its raw starch taste and set the starch. Stopping early leaves the dressing thin and floury-tasting, while overcooking can make it stiff.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, vinegar, mustard, cabbage, flour, pepper):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, vinegar, mustard, cabbage, flour, pepper. 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 cabbage salad recipes

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