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Salad

Dressed Cabbage

A vinegar and butter dressing for chopped or shaved cabbage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and cabbage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,924 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Dressed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the egg in a bowl.

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

  3. Stir the mixture over heat until it boils.

  4. Remove from heat and let it cool.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the chopped or shaved 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. Vinegar + cabbagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Thickens the dressing as it heats, giving it a creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the sugar and richness of the butter.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing and offsets the acidity of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the dressing.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture over heat until it boils. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the dressing thickens only with steady stirring. Stirring prevents scrambling on the pan bottom, which would leave lumps.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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