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Salad

Cabbage Salad with Cream, American Style

A chilled cabbage salad dressed with a creamy sauce made from butter, vinegar, powdered sugar, egg yolks, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 with Cream, American Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. In a saucepan, bring the white wine vinegar to a boil.

  2. Add the butter, salt, pepper, and powdered sugar, then stir in the cabbage.

  3. Heat the cabbage thoroughly, then transfer it to an earthen bowl.

Make the custard

  1. In a separate bowl, dilute the yolks of the eggs in cold milk and strain through a sieve.

  2. While stirring, add the strained yolks to the boiling milk until it thickens.

  3. Remove from heat and pour the mixture over the cabbage, mixing well.

Chill and serve

  1. Cover the bowl and refrigerate until cold.

  2. Transfer to a salad bowl, shape as desired, and garnish with beets and quartered hard-boiled eggs.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the salad and holds its shape when shredded and heated.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk mixture into a custard that coats the cabbage.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the custard, which thickens as the yolks set.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel to the cabbage.
White wine vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the cream and eggs.

The step that matters

Adding the yolks to the boiling milk. Egg yolks scramble if they meet too much heat too fast. Stirring constantly while adding the strained yolks keeps the custard smooth as it thickens.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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