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Cabbage and Banana Salad

A salad of finely chopped cabbage and banana, dressed with a sauce of butter, egg, cream, vinegar, salt, sugar, flour, mustard, and peanuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 and Banana Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Mix the salt, sugar, flour, and mustard with the butter.

  2. Add the beaten egg, cream, and vinegar.

  3. Cook over hot water until thick.

Prepare the salad

  1. Chop the cabbage finely.

  2. Cut the bananas into small pieces.

  3. Roll the peanuts.

  4. Mix everything thoroughly.

  5. Add the dressing to the cabbage and banana mixture.

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. Banana + peanuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together308 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Peanut + mustardtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together102 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

Cabbage
Provides the crisp, bulky base of the salad.
Bananas
Add sweetness and a soft texture to the salad.
Egg
Thickens the dressing as it cooks, giving it body.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the dressing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the dressing base.
Peanuts
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavor.

The step that matters

Cook over hot water until thick. The egg proteins set as they heat, thickening the dressing. If the heat is too high or the mixture is left too long, the egg can curdle and turn grainy, so cook gently and stir while it thickens.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (banana, peanut, sugar, flour, mustard, butter, cream):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, peanut, sugar, flour, mustard, butter, 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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