Skip to main content
Salad

Cabbage Salad

A cabbage salad dressed with a creamy custard-like sauce made from vinegar, butter, sugar, eggs, mustard, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine vinegar, butter, sugar, and salt.

  2. Pour boiling mixture over beaten eggs and mustard.

  3. Return to heat and stir until thickened like custard.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in cream or milk and red pepper.

Assemble

  1. Prepare cabbage cold and pour warm dressing over it.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing into a custard-like sauce when gently heated.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and mellows the dressing into a creamier texture.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Return to heat and stir until thickened like custard. Egg proteins set as they warm, so the dressing thickens. If it gets too hot or is left unstirred, the eggs can scramble and turn grainy, so keep the heat gentle and stir constantly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

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

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes