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Dessert

Cabbage Salad

A cabbage salad dressed with a warm egg, vinegar, butter, mustard, and sugar mixture, finished with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, mix the beaten eggs, vinegar, and butter.

  2. Cook over low heat until thick.

Combine and serve

  1. In a large bowl, combine the cabbage, salt, pepper, sugar, and mustard.

  2. Pour the hot dressing over the cabbage mixture.

  3. Beat until light.

  4. Let the salad cool.

  5. Fold in the whipped cream 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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the salad and provides its crisp texture.
Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook and give it a smooth, creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing to offset the sharpness of the vinegar.
Whipped cream
Adds lightness and richness when folded into the cooled salad.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing over low heat until thick. Egg proteins set as they heat, thickening the dressing. Heat that is too high can scramble the eggs into lumps, so cook gently and stir constantly.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, pepper, sugar, mustard, egg, vinegar, butter. 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 →

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