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Salad

Cabbage Walnut Salad

A salad of chopped cabbage and celery dressed with a butter‑flour‑sugar‑mustard vinaigrette and topped with walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Walnut Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop or cut one small head of cabbage and one head of celery.

  2. Season the vegetables with salt, pepper, and a piece of butter.

  3. Cover with the salad dressing.

  4. Just before serving, mix in some chopped walnuts.

Make the dressing

  1. Take four tablespoonfuls of butter, one tablespoonful of flour, one tablespoonful of sugar, one teaspoonful of mustard, a little cayenne pepper, one cup of sweet milk, one-half cup of vinegar, and three eggs.

  2. Melt the butter, then stir in the flour, salt, sugar, etc., together.

  3. Beat the eggs in the milk.

  4. Cook the mixture over steam.

  5. Beat in the vinegar after removing from fire.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

906Calories
32 gProtein
27 gFat
134 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 11 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Broccoli1 cup chopped (156g)55
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

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

  3. Celery + cabbagetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Provides the crisp, bulky body of the salad.
Celery
Adds crunch and a fresh, slightly sharp vegetable texture.
Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set when gently heated.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the dressing.
Flour
Thickens the dressing as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sugar and richness of the dressing.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg dressing gently over steam. Eggs thicken when heated gently but scramble and curdle if they overheat. Steam keeps the heat even, and adding the vinegar after removing the pan from the fire helps keep the dressing smooth.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, butter, flour, milk, vinegar, sugar, mustard):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, butter, flour, milk, vinegar, sugar, mustard. 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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