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Salad

Red Cabbage Salad

A salad of shredded red cabbage and hard‑boiled eggs dressed with oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and mustard 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 ↓

Red Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cut the red cabbage into fine shreds.

  2. Wash the cabbage in cold water and drain on a napkin.

Make the salad

  1. In a salad bowl, combine the cabbage and finely chopped hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Make a dressing by mixing salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, mustard, and sugar.

  3. Pour the dressing over the cabbage and mix well.

  4. Arrange the salad and garnish with 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 + mustardtop 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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  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

Red cabbage
Forms the bulk of the salad and provides its crisp, crunchy texture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft, creamy texture that contrasts the crisp cabbage.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the sweetness.
Oil or clarified butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and coats the cabbage shreds.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Shred the cabbage finely and dress it just before serving. Fine shreds let the dressing penetrate and soften the cabbage slightly, while acid in the vinegar can fade the red colour and wilt the leaves if they sit too long.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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