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Salad

Cabbage Salad

A salad of finely chopped cabbage dressed with mustard, sugar, vinegar, egg, and optional cold cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Mix mustard with vinegar in a bowl.

  2. Add sugar and egg, then beat all ingredients together.

  3. Place the bowl over steam.

  4. Boil until thick.

Finish the salad

  1. Once cool, pour the mixture over the chopped cabbage.

  2. If the dressing is too thick, add cold cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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 its proteins set with gentle heat.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that brightens the dressing and balances richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, savoury aroma and flavour to the dressing.
Cabbage
Provides the main body and crisp texture of the salad.

The step that matters

Heating the egg mixture over steam. Egg proteins set gradually as they warm. Heat that is too strong or too fast can scramble the egg, leaving lumps instead of a smooth, thick dressing. Gentle steam and steady stirring keep it silky.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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