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Salad

Cabbage Salad

A salad of cabbage dressed with a vinaigrette of vinegar, egg yolks, butter, mustard, and chopped hard-boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and cabbage 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 ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a large bowl, combine the vinegar and egg yolks.

  2. Melt the butter and mix it into the vinegar and yolk mixture.

  3. Add the mustard and mix thoroughly.

  4. Chop the hard-boiled eggs and add them to the mixture.

Dress and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the cabbage and mix well.

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. Mustard + cabbagetop 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. Vinegar + cabbagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify the butter and vinegar into a thick, smooth dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky texture to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that balances the rich yolks and butter.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds a sharp, savoury bite.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and mild richness to the dressing.
Cabbage
Provides the crisp base that the dressing coats.

The step that matters

Combining the butter into the yolk and vinegar mixture. Egg yolks can only emulsify fat into a smooth dressing if the butter is added gradually and mixed well. Adding it too fast or while very hot can split the mixture and leave it greasy or curdled.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, egg, butter, 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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