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Salad

Cabbage Salad

A salad of finely chopped cabbage and celery dressed with a creamy yolk‑mustard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cabbage and celery finely.

  2. Boil the eggs until hard, then remove the yolks and mash them.

Make the dressing

  1. Mix the mashed yolks with mustard, salt, and melted butter until smooth.

  2. Add vinegar gradually until the mixture resembles a thick cream.

Assemble

  1. Pour the sauce over the cabbage and mix gently.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter and mustard to make a smooth, thick dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the dressing a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and thins the yolk mixture into a sauce.
Cabbage
Provides the crisp, bulky base that the dressing coats.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and helps bind the yolk and butter mixture into an emulsion.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar gradually. Vinegar added in small amounts lets the yolk and butter mixture emulsify smoothly. Adding it all at once can break the emulsion, leaving the dressing thin or greasy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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