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Salad

Cabbage Salad

A cabbage salad dressed with a mixture of egg yolks, butter, vinegar, and seasonings, topped with sliced egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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. In a large bowl, combine the finely chopped cabbage, salt, white sugar, black pepper, and ground mustard.

Make the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, rub the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs until smooth.

  2. Add the slightly warmed butter to the egg yolks and mix thoroughly.

  3. Add the vinegar and mix well.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the egg yolk mixture with the cabbage mixture.

  2. Serve the salad topped with sliced egg whites.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the salad and provides crisp, fresh texture.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter to make a smooth, rich, creamy dressing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the yolk mixture turn silky and smooth.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salad and balances the richness of the dressing.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Mixing the butter into the egg yolks. The warmed butter must be blended thoroughly into the smooth yolks so they form a stable emulsion; if it is too hot or poorly mixed, the dressing can separate or turn greasy.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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