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Cabbage Dressing

A creamy dressing made with sweet cream, vinegar, butter, eggs, mustard, and seasonings, served over shredded cabbage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cabbage Dressing

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cabbage Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat together the sweet cream, vinegar, melted butter, eggs, mixed mustard, red pepper, and salt.

  2. Place the mixture in a dish and set it in a pot of hot water.

  3. Stir continuously until the mixture thickens.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing over finely shredded cabbage.

  2. Serve 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook gently, giving it a creamy body.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavor.
Melted butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a rounded mouthfeel.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Stir continuously until the mixture thickens. Egg proteins set gently with heat, so constant stirring over hot water keeps the eggs from scrambling and yields a smooth, thick dressing.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Spinachfits about as well

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