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Salad

Cabbage Salad

A cabbage salad with a sweet and tangy dressing made from vinegar, butter, sugar, cream, egg, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

  1. Mix vinegar, water, butter, and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Let the boiling mixture cool slightly.

  4. Beat in cream, egg, and flour.

  5. Return the mixture to heat.

  6. Bring the mixture to a boil again.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine shredded cabbage with salt and pepper in a large bowl.

  2. Pour the mixture over the cabbage and mix well while hot.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the salad and absorbs the warm dressing, becoming tender and flavorful.
Egg
Thickens the dressing as it heats, giving it a creamy, coating body.
Flour
Stabilizes the cream and egg mixture so it thickens without curdling when boiled.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the salad its tangy flavor.
Sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness with sweetness.

The step that matters

Beat in cream, egg, and flour, then reheat. Adding egg to a hot mixture can scramble it. Let the mixture cool slightly first, then reheat gently so the egg and flour thicken the dressing smoothly rather than curdling.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, butter, sugar, cream, egg, 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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