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Salad

Centennial Cabbage Salad

A cabbage salad dressed with an egg, sugar, salt, cayenne pepper, mustard, butter, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Centennial Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Combine the egg, sugar, salt, cayenne pepper, mustard, butter, and vinegar in a bowl.

  2. Place the bowl in a kettle of boiling water and stir continuously until the mixture thickens.

Assemble the salad

  1. Chop the cabbage finely and pour the dressing over it.

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. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + cabbagetop 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

Egg
Thickens the dressing as it cooks, giving it a creamy, smooth body.
Butter
Adds richness and smoothness to the dressing as it melts into the mixture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.
Cabbage
Forms the body of the salad, holding the dressing.

The step that matters

Stirring the dressing over boiling water. The egg must be stirred constantly over gentle heat so it thickens smoothly. If left still or overheated, the egg proteins can scramble and make the dressing grainy.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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