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Salad

Cabbage Salad

A salad of finely sliced white cabbage dressed with a hot vinegar and butter mixture, topped with a heated milk and egg sauce.

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 dressing

  1. In one saucepan, heat the vinegar.

  2. In another saucepan, heat the milk.

  3. To the hot vinegar, add sugar, butter, salt, and pepper.

  4. Bring the vinegar mixture to a boil.

Cook the cabbage

  1. Add the cabbage to the boiling vinegar mixture and cover.

  2. Keep the cabbage hot but do not boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Once the milk is hot, stir in the beaten egg until it thickens.

  2. Pour the cabbage mixture into a salad bowl and top with the hot milk and egg mixture.

  3. Mix thoroughly with a salad fork.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

White cabbage
Forms the bulk of the salad and soaks up the warm dressing as it wilts slightly.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that balances the sugar and cream-like milk.
Egg
Thickens the hot milk as it cooks, giving the topping a creamy, coating texture.
Milk
Adds richness and mildness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar when combined with the egg.
Butter
Adds fat and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the hot vinegar dressing.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing to offset the vinegar's sourness.

The step that matters

Stir the beaten egg into the hot milk. The egg proteins set as they heat, thickening the milk. If the milk is too hot or heated too fast, the egg can scramble into lumps instead of forming a smooth, creamy sauce, so keep the heat moderate and stir constantly.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, milk, sugar, butter, pepper, egg. 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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