Name: Cabbage Salad
Ingredients: 2 quarts cabbage, chopped; 1 medium onion, finely chopped; 2 or 3 egg yolks, well beaten; 1 cup vinegar; 6 hard boiled egg yolks, finely chopped; 2 tablespoons melted butter; 1 teaspoon mustard; Salt to taste; Sugar to taste

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

Make the dressing

In a separate bowl, mix the beaten egg yolks, vinegar, melted butter, and mustard.

Combine and serve

In a large bowl, combine the chopped cabbage and finely chopped onion.
Pour the mixture over the cabbage and onion, and stir well.
Add the chopped hard-boiled egg yolks, and season with salt and sugar to taste.
Toss everything together until well combined.

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).
Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,001 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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 texture.
Egg yolks: Beaten yolks thicken the dressing and add richness to the salad.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the dressing.
Melted butter: Adds fat and smoothness to the dressing.
Onion: Adds sharp aromatic flavor to the cabbage.

Swap the onion

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

Horseradishfits better
Radishfits better
Cucumberfits better
Onionthe original

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