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Salad

Cream Cabbage Salad

A chilled cabbage salad mixed with a thickened cream, egg, mustard, vinegar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Cream Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine the chopped cabbage and enough cream to nearly cover it.

  2. Add the beaten egg, red pepper or mustard, vinegar, and salt.

  3. Stir constantly over medium heat until the mixture thickens.

  4. Remove from heat and let it cool.

Assemble and rest

  1. Pour the mixture over the cabbage and mix well.

  2. Let the salad stand for one hour 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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 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. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

What each ingredient does

Heavy cream
Provides richness and a creamy body that coats the cabbage.
Egg
Thickens the cream as it heats, giving the dressing body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the cream.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture over heat. Egg proteins set when heated, so the mixture must be stirred constantly over medium heat. Without stirring, the egg can scramble or curdle before the dressing thickens smoothly.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, pepper, 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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