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Salad

Cabbage Dressing

A vinaigrette made with vinegar, egg yolks, sugar, mustard, butter, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cabbage Dressing

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cabbage Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the vinegar in a saucepan until hot but not boiling.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolks.

  3. Add the sugar and mustard, mixing well.

  4. Incorporate the butter until melted.

  5. Finally, stir in the cream until smooth.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set gently in the warm vinegar, and add richness.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the dressing and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing and softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rounded texture and mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, smoothing the final dressing.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolks in off the heat. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated but can scramble if they meet very hot liquid. Removing the vinegar from the heat before adding them lets the yolks thicken smoothly rather than curdling.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Cucumberfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, egg, sugar, 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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