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Salad

Cabbage Salad with Cream, American Style

A chilled cabbage salad dressed with a creamy mixture of butter, vinegar, sugar, egg yolks, and milk.

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 with Cream, American Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

  1. Bring the white wine vinegar to a boil in a saucepan.

  2. Add the butter, salt, pepper, and powdered sugar to the boiling vinegar.

  3. Stir in the cabbage.

  4. Heat the cabbage thoroughly.

  5. Transfer the heated cabbage to an earthen bowl.

Make the custard

  1. Dilute the egg yolks in a little cold milk.

  2. Strain the diluted yolks through a sieve.

  3. While stirring, add the strained yolks to the boiling milk until it thickens.

  4. Remove the milk mixture from heat.

Assemble and chill

  1. Pour the thickened mixture over the cabbage and mix well.

  2. Cover the bowl and refrigerate until cold.

  3. Transfer the chilled salad to a salad bowl, shape as desired, and garnish with beets and quartered hard-boiled eggs.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the salad and provides its crisp, fresh texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk mixture into a rich custard that coats the cabbage.
White wine vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the custard.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard, which the yolks thicken into a creamy dressing.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the dressing.

The step that matters

Adding the yolks to the boiling milk. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated but scramble if they meet boiling liquid too fast. Stirring while adding the strained yolks spreads the heat and keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, vinegar, butter, pepper, sugar, egg, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, butter, pepper, sugar, egg, milk. 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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