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Cabbage Salad

A salad of finely chopped cabbage dressed with a boiled vinegar, mustard, sugar, eggs, salt, butter, and pepper.

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 ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Sprinkle chopped cabbage with salt.

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the eggs thoroughly.

  2. Add boiling vinegar.

  3. Rub mustard into enough vinegar to form a smooth paste.

  4. Add the mustard paste to the boiling vinegar.

  5. Add sugar and pepper to taste.

  6. Let the mixture come to a boil.

  7. Boil the mixture until thick.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the cabbage.

  2. Stir thoroughly.

  3. Pour it over the cabbage.

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. Mustard + peppertop 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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the salad and provides the crisp texture.
Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook, giving it a creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness and acidity that balances the sugar.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the dressing into a smooth paste.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing to offset the acidity of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until thick. Eggs thicken as their proteins set with heat, but overheating can curdle them. Cook gently and stir while the dressing thickens so it stays smooth.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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