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Salad

Oabbaqb Salad and Cold Slaw

A salad of finely shaved cabbage, heated with butter, vinegar, salt and pepper, and served in a covered dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Oabbaqb Salad and Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cut the cabbage in half and shave it finely with a sharp knife.

  2. Lay the shaved cabbage in a dish and garnish as you would lettuce.

Cook and serve

  1. In a clean saucepan, combine the cabbage, butter, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

  2. Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring with a silver spoon until the butter melts and the seasoning is well mixed.

  3. Serve in a covered dish.

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

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

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 its crisp, fresh texture.
Butter
Melts into the warm cabbage, adding richness and carrying the seasoning.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the butter and sweetness of the cabbage.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture over medium heat. Gentle heat melts the butter and lets the seasoning spread evenly without scorching the butter or wilting the cabbage too far, which would make the slaw limp.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagethe original
  4. Onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar, 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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