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Salad

Salad Dressing for Cabbage

A creamy dressing made with cream, vinegar, salt, and mustard, served over shaved cabbage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and mustard 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 ↓

Salad Dressing for Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the cream, vinegar, salt, and prepared mustard.

  2. Beat the mixture until well combined.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the shaved cabbage just before serving.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  4. Cream + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,064 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + mustardtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,935 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the cream and vinegar.
Cabbage
Forms the salad base, holding the dressing on its crisp leaves.

The step that matters

Pour the dressing over the cabbage just before serving. Vinegar and salt draw water out of cabbage, so dressing added too early makes the salad limp and watery. Adding it at the last moment keeps the shaved cabbage crisp.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, vinegar, mustard. 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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