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Southern Cabbage

A cabbage dish simmered with vinegar, sugar, mustard, cream, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Southern Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Chop or slice the cabbage finely.

  2. Place the cabbage in a stewpan and cover it with boiling water.

  3. Boil for 15 minutes, then drain all the water.

Make the dressing

  1. Combine the vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper, mustard, and salad oil in a separate pot.

  2. Heat the mixture until boiling.

  3. Stir together the cream and egg.

  4. Add the cream and egg mixture to the boiling vinegar mixture.

Combine and serve

  1. Mix thoroughly with the cabbage.

  2. Cook for a moment.

  3. Serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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 dish and becomes tender after boiling.
Cream and egg
Enrich the dressing and thicken it gently as it heats.
Wine vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dish its sharp, tangy flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and egg mixture to the boiling vinegar mixture. If the egg is added to very hot liquid without being stirred in well, it can scramble into lumps. Stirring the cream and egg together first and adding them steadily helps keep the dressing smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, vinegar, sugar, pepper, mustard, cream, 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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