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Cabbage Salad

A salad of shredded white cabbage dressed with butter, flour, vinegar, egg yolk, cream, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Soak the cabbage in cold water to make it crisp.

  2. Dry the cabbage well.

  3. Shave the cabbage finely.

Make the dressing

  1. Rub butter and flour together in a bowl.

  2. Stir in vinegar and scald for one minute.

  3. Add beaten egg yolk and cream.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 after soaking and drying.
Butter
Enriches the dressing and gives it a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Flour
Combined with butter to thicken the dressing as it heats.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the butter and cream.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies and thickens the dressing, giving it a creamy body.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Scald the vinegar mixture before adding the egg yolk. Egg yolk can curdle or scramble if added to a very hot mixture. Scalding briefly thickens the base first, so the yolk and cream can be stirred in gently and blend smoothly.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, vinegar, egg, cream, pepper. 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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