Skip to main content
Salad

Cabbage Salad

A salad of shredded cabbage dressed with butter, flour, vinegar, egg yolk, cream, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Soak the cabbage in cold water for some time to make it crisp, then dry well and shave it as finely as possible.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, rub together the butter and flour until smooth.

  2. Stir in the vinegar and scald the mixture for one minute.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolk and cream, mixing well.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Firm white cabbage
Forms the crisp, bulky body of the salad that holds the dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the dressing.
Flour
Thickens the butter mixture so the dressing becomes smooth and holds together.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the dressing.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies and thickens the dressing as it is heated, giving body and richness.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Scalding the vinegar mixture after adding the egg yolk and cream. Once the egg yolk is added, the dressing should be mixed gently and not boiled. Overheating can curdle the egg and cream, so the mixture turns grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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

More cabbage salad recipes

Dressing 16Red 11Creamed 7with Eggs 5Boston 4Creamy 4 See all 163 →

You might also like

Cabbage DressingCabbage Dressing9 recipesChicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipes