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Salad

Cabbage Salad

A cabbage salad topped with a custard made from milk, vinegar, butter, sugar, salt, pepper, and egg yolks.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Heat milk in a saucepan.

  2. Heat vinegar in a separate saucepan.

  3. When vinegar boils, add butter, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  4. Stir in chopped cabbage.

  5. Cover and let scald and steam for a moment without boiling.

  6. Remove hot milk from stove.

  7. Cool slightly.

  8. Stir in beaten and strained yolks.

  9. Return to stove and boil for a moment.

Serve

  1. Dish cabbage and pour custard over it.

  2. Stir rapidly until well mixed.

  3. Set immediately in a cold place.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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 absorbs the vinegar-based custard as it steams.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the egg yolks thicken into a custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard through heat-set proteins, giving it body and richness.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness of the custard.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to offset the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Return to stove and boil for a moment. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but overheating or boiling too long can curdle them. Stirring the yolks in off the heat and returning briefly keeps the custard smooth rather than scrambled.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, vinegar, butter, sugar, pepper, 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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