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Salad

Cabbage Salad

A salad made from boiled savoy cabbage dressed with salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, anchovies, and capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Cook and dress

  1. Boil the savoy cabbage in water until tender.

  2. Drain the cabbage and dress it with salt, pepper, Provence oil, and vinegar.

  3. Add the anchovies and capers.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + caperstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + caperstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,088 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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

Savoy cabbage
Forms the salad's body, becoming tender and soft when boiled.
Anchovies
Add salty, savory depth that seasons the dressing and cabbage.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the cabbage and balances the oil.
Provence oil
Carries flavor and adds richness, coating the cabbage and helping it taste full.

The step that matters

Boil the cabbage until tender. Cabbage cooked too briefly stays tough and bitter, while overcooking makes it soft and watery. Draining well keeps the dressing from being diluted.

Swap the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Dillfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, pepper, 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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