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Salad

Cabbage Salad

A salad of finely shaved cabbage tossed with a butter, flour, vinegar, egg yolk, and cream dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 to make it crisp, then dry it well and shave it as finely as possible.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, rub together the butter and flour.

  2. Stir in the vinegar and scald for 1 minute.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolk and cream, then 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

Butter
Enriches the dressing and adds richness and body as it blends with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the dressing with the butter, giving it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps thicken the dressing as it gently cooks.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream. Egg yolk thickens when heated, but if the mixture is too hot it can scramble. Keep the dressing warm rather than boiling once the yolk goes in, and stir steadily so it thickens smoothly.

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.

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