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Salad

Cabbage and Pepper Salad

A salad of shredded cabbage and peppers dressed with a butter, egg, vinegar, sugar, mustard, salt, and pepper sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cabbage and Pepper Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely shred the cabbage and peppers.

  2. If desired, grate a small amount of onion or use onion salt.

Make the dressing

  1. In a double boiler, combine butter, eggs, vinegar, sugar, dry mustard, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cook over hot water until the mixture begins to thicken.

  3. Add the vinegar and continue cooking for 3 more minutes, beating occasionally.

  4. Store any unused dressing for future use.

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

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

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook, giving it a creamy, body-rich texture.
Butter
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the tangy acidity that defines the dressing and cuts the richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
Cabbage
Supplies crisp texture and bulk as the base of the salad.
Dry mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent flavor that complements the sweet and sour notes.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing gently over hot water. Eggs thicken smoothly at moderate heat, but too much heat can scramble them into lumps. Stirring or beating keeps the heat even so the mixture thickens evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, pepper, butter, egg, 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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