Why it works: Cream and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓
Cabbage Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Trim off the outside leaves of the cabbage.
Cut off the bottom of the stock and slice off the top evenly.
Remove the inside of the cabbage, leaving about two outer leaves to form a shell.
Chop the removed cabbage finely.
Mix the chopped cabbage with cream salad dressing.
Refill the cabbage shell with the salad mixture.
Garnish with sliced hard boiled eggs before serving.
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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Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together42,166 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Cabbage + creamtop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together778 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Cabbage + eggtop 32% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,391 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Swap the cabbage
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg):
- Spinachfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Leekfits better
- Cabbagethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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