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Dutch Salad

A salad of cabbage lettuce, ham, egg, and vinegar, served lukewarm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 622 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dutch Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage lettuce, cut it in half, and wash it well.

  2. Fry the slice of ham until done, then remove it from the pan.

Make the dressing

  1. In the hot fat, pour the beaten egg and vinegar, and heat until it thickens.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cut the salad into small pieces and pour the egg and vinegar mixture over it while lukewarm.

  2. Place the salad in a deep dish, cut the ham into 1‑inch pieces, and arrange on top.

  3. Let it stand for about five minutes 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 + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Cabbage + hamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together186 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage lettuce
Forms the bulk of the salad, providing crisp leaves that hold the warm dressing.
Beaten egg
Thickens into a creamy, lightly set coating when heated with the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the fat and egg.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour and meaty richness to the salad.

The step that matters

Heating the egg and vinegar until it thickens. Egg proteins set as they heat, so it must be heated gently and stirred to thicken smoothly. Overheating can scramble the egg into curds rather than a smooth coating.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, ham, egg, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, ham, egg, vinegar. 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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