Skip to main content
Main

Cabbage Salad

A chilled cabbage salad dressed with a hot custard of milk, eggs, butter, sugar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Bring vinegar to a boil in a pot.

  2. Add butter, sugar, and seasonings to the boiling vinegar.

  3. Boil the mixture.

  4. Add shredded cabbage to the boiling mixture.

  5. Remove the cabbage from the heat once it is scalding hot.

  6. Pour hot milk over the beaten eggs.

  7. Stir the mixture constantly for one minute.

  8. Transfer the cabbage to a bowl.

  9. Pour the hot custard over the cabbage.

  10. Mix well.

Chill and serve

  1. Cover the bowl.

  2. Place the bowl in ice-cold water until completely chilled.

  3. Serve the salad cold.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Cabbage + vinegartop 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

White cabbage
Provides the crisp, shredded body of the salad.
Eggs
Thicken the hot custard as they set, coating the cabbage.
Milk
Dilutes the vinegar and makes the custard smooth and creamy.
Vinegar
Gives the salad its sharp, acidic tang.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir the custard constantly for one minute. Egg proteins set when heated, so constant stirring keeps the custard smooth and prevents small lumps of scrambled egg from forming.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, milk, vinegar, butter, sugar, egg, 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

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipes