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Cabbage Salad

A cabbage salad dressed with a custard made from hot milk, vinegar, butter, sugar, eggs, celery extract, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Heat the milk and vinegar separately until the vinegar boils.

  2. Add the butter, sugar, pepper, and salt to the boiling vinegar and boil for a moment.

  3. Stir in the cabbage and heat until scalding (do not boil).

Make the custard and serve

  1. Add the eggs to the hot milk and cook for one minute after it begins to thicken.

  2. Place the cabbage in a deep dish and pour the custard over it, stirring quickly with a silver fork.

  3. Cover tightly and refrigerate.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the hot milk into a custard that coats the cabbage.
Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the salad and holds the warm custard dressing.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness of the custard.
Sweet milk
Forms the base of the custard, which thickens when the eggs cook in it.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the dressing.

The step that matters

Add the eggs to the hot milk and cook for one minute after it begins to thicken. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the custard can curdle or turn grainy if overheated. Stirring quickly and stopping once it thickens keeps it smooth.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, milk, vinegar, butter, egg, sugar, pepper. 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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