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Salad

Cabbage Salad

A cabbage salad dressed with a mustard, vinegar, butter, brown sugar, egg, and milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Combine vinegar and butter in a dish and heat on the stove until boiling.

  2. Mix in mustard, brown sugar, milk, and the well-beaten egg until thoroughly combined.

  3. Slowly stir the mixture into the boiling vinegar until it thickens.

Assemble and serve

  1. Finely chop the cabbage, season with salt and pepper, and add to the dressing.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil again, then let it cool 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. Mustard + cabbagetop 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 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

Egg
Thickens the dressing as it cooks and binds it into a smooth, creamy texture.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness of the dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.
Mustard
Contributes sharp, pungent flavor that cuts through the richness of the dressing.
Cabbage
Forms the crisp, bulky body of the salad that absorbs the dressing.

The step that matters

Stir the milk-egg mixture slowly into the boiling vinegar. Egg proteins set when heated, so adding the mixture too quickly can scramble the egg and leave lumps instead of a smooth, thickened dressing. Slow stirring lets the egg warm gradually and thicken evenly.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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