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Cabbage Dressing

A warm dressing made from egg yolks, vinegar, mustard, salt, butter, and flour, served over chopped cabbage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cabbage Dressing

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cabbage Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine egg yolks, vinegar, mustard, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Rub butter into a small amount of flour until well mixed.

  3. Heat the mixture gently until warm.

  4. Pour the hot dressing over chopped cabbage and serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the dressing as gentle heat sets the proteins.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, bright flavour.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps hold the yolks and fat together.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the dressing and helps the butter blend evenly.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture gently until warm. Egg yolks thicken with gentle heat but can curdle or scramble if the mixture gets too hot or heats too quickly. Low, steady warmth keeps the dressing smooth and creamy.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

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