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Salad

Salad for Cabbage

A cabbage salad dressed with a creamy mustard and vinegar dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Salad for Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the oil, mustard, and salt together.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, vinegar, and sugar; mix well.

  3. Transfer the mixture to an earthen stewpan and heat over low fire.

  4. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon until it thickens to a cream‑like consistency.

  5. Strain the mixture and let it cool.

Assemble

  1. Shred the cabbage and combine with the cooled dressing.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharp vinegar.
Sweet oil, butter, or cream
Adds fat that makes the dressing smooth and rich.
Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the salad and carries the dressing.

The step that matters

Stir constantly while heating the dressing. Eggs thicken by gentle heat, but if they get too hot or are left unstirred they can scramble into lumps. Constant stirring over low heat keeps the custard-like dressing smooth.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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