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Vegetable Salad

A salad of cabbage, celery, onion, and cucumber dressed with a thickened egg yolk and vinegar mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and cabbage 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 ↓

Vegetable Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat together the egg yolks, sugar, dry mustard, black pepper, red pepper, and ginger until well combined.

  2. Add the sour cream and strong vinegar, then cook the mixture in a double boiler until thickened.

Assemble and serve

  1. Combine the chopped cabbage, celery, onion, and cucumber in a large bowl.

  2. Make a bed of the crisped celery on a serving platter.

  3. Pour the dressing over the vegetable mixture and mix well before placing it on the celery bed.

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. Mustard + cabbagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + cabbagetop 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. Ginger + cabbagetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together545 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they cook and bind it into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Sour cream
Adds creaminess and a mild tang that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Strong vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness of the eggs.
Cabbage
Provides crisp texture and bulk to the salad.
Cucumber
Adds moisture and a cool, crisp crunch to the vegetable mix.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing gently in a double boiler. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they get too hot. Gentle, indirect heat lets them thicken smoothly into a custard-like dressing.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, mustard, pepper, cream, vinegar, cabbage. 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 vegetable salad recipes

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