Name: White Cabbage Salad
Ingredients: 1 hard white cabbage; 2 egg yolks, beaten; ¾ cup cider vinegar; 2 teaspoons white sugar; mustard mixed in boiling water; salt to taste; a pinch of red pepper; 4 tablespoons sweet cream

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 ↓

White Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Select a hard white cabbage and remove the outer leaves.

Make the dressing

In a bowl, mix the beaten egg yolks, cider vinegar, sugar, mustard, salt, red pepper, and sweet cream.
Heat the mixture until very hot, but do not boil.
Stir in the beaten eggs rapidly.

Dress the cabbage

Pour the hot dressing over the cabbage and mix well.

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.

Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,431 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White cabbage: Forms the crisp, bulky body of the salad that the dressing coats.
Egg yolks: Thicken the warm dressing and give it a smooth, creamy texture.
Cider vinegar: Adds sharp acidity that brightens the dressing and cuts richness.
White sugar: Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with gentle sweetness.
Sweet cream: Adds fat and body, softening the acidity and making the dressing smoother.
Mustard: Contributes a pungent, sharp flavor that complements the vinegar.

The step that matters

Heat the dressing until very hot but do not boil. Egg yolks thicken gently as they warm, but boiling heat can scramble them into lumps. Holding the mixture just below boiling lets it thicken smoothly before the dressing is poured over the cabbage.

Swap the cabbage

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

Horseradishfits better
Capsicumfits better
Shallotfits about as well
Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cider, vinegar, sugar, mustard, pepper, cream. 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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White Cabbage Salad