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Salad

Cabbage Salad

A cabbage salad with a creamy mustard and sugar dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine shredded cabbage, chopped onion, and sliced green pepper in a bowl. Mix well and let stand for 30 minutes.

Make the dressing

  1. Mix sugar, flour, mustard, salt, and pepper in a saucepan. Add butter to the dry ingredients.

  2. Stir in vinegar and water.

  3. Cook the mixture slowly over low heat, stirring until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Gradually add the mixture to the well-beaten egg or egg yolks.

  6. Thin the dressing with cream to your desired consistency.

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

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

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

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

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the crisp, bulky body of the salad.
Egg
Thickens the dressing and gives it a creamy, rich body when gently cooked.
Flour
Thickens the dressing along with the egg as the mixture cooks.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that balances the sugar in the dressing.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing to offset the acidity of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the dressing's sharpness.

The step that matters

Adding the mixture to the egg. If the hot mixture is poured into the egg too quickly, the egg can scramble. Adding it gradually while beating warms the egg slowly so the dressing stays smooth and thickened.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, pepper, sugar, flour, mustard, butter, egg. 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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