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Cream Cabbage

A cabbage salad dressed with vinegar, egg, butter, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Slice the cabbage as for coleslaw and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  2. Let the cabbage stand until cold.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine vinegar, beaten egg, and butter; heat until warm.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the warm mixture over the cabbage.

  2. Finally, add the sweet cream over the 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.

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

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

  2. Vinegar + cabbagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Thickens the warm vinegar mixture slightly as it heats, giving the dressing body.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel in the dressing.
Cabbage
Forms the base of the dish, providing crisp texture and bulk.

The step that matters

Heating the egg mixture. Egg proteins can scramble if the vinegar, egg, and butter are heated too fast or too hot. Gentle warming keeps the dressing smooth and lightly thickened.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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