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 and Vinboab
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dressing
Heat the vinegar and butter together.
Beat the egg and stir it into the mixture once it has cooled enough to avoid cooking the egg.
Assemble and serve
Cut up the cabbage and season with salt and pepper.
Pour the warm mixture over the cabbage and set aside for dinner.
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.
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Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,081 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Vinegar + cabbagetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,924 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,814 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Vinegar
- Provides sharp acidity that flavours the dressing and softens the cabbage slightly.
- Egg
- Thickens the warm vinegar and butter mixture into a creamy, emulsified dressing.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat that rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar.
- Cabbage
- Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the warm dressing as it sits.
The step that matters
Stirring the egg into the mixture. If the mixture is too hot, the egg will scramble instead of thickening smoothly. Letting it cool enough first lets the egg thicken the dressing gently and evenly.
Swap the cabbage
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, butter, egg, pepper):
- Capsicumfits better
- Mustardfits better
- Shallotfits about as well
- Cabbagethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter, 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.
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