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Salad

Cabbage Salad

A salad of finely chopped cabbage and celery dressed with a butter, flour, and egg sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the cabbage and celery finely and soak in cold water.

  2. Drain the cabbage and celery, then sprinkle with salt, pepper, and sugar to taste.

Make the dressing

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

  2. Add the eggs, mustard, vinegar, salt, pepper, and a little sugar to the mixture.

  3. Cook the dressing over low heat until thick.

Assemble

  1. Pour the dressing over the cabbage and mix well.

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 + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cabbage
Forms the crisp, bulky body of the salad.
Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set during gentle cooking, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Flour
Combined with butter to help thicken the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing over low heat until thick. Egg proteins set when heated, and gentle low heat thickens the dressing smoothly. Higher heat can scramble the eggs into lumps, so stir constantly and watch closely.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, pepper, sugar, butter, flour, egg, mustard):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, pepper, sugar, butter, flour, egg, 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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