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Cabbage Salad with Boiled Dressing

A cabbage salad dressed with a boiled mixture of vinegar, butter, sugar, mustard, milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 with Boiled Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, heat the vinegar, butter, sugar, mustard, salt, and pepper.

  2. In another vessel, heat the milk and stir in the beaten eggs; cook until it begins to thicken.

Combine

  1. When the vinegar mixture boils, pour it over the shredded cabbage.

  2. Return everything to the saucepan.

  3. Stir for 1 minute with a silver fork.

  4. Add the boiled milk and eggs, then stir well.

Cool and serve

  1. Transfer to a covered bowl to cool quickly.

  2. Serve in a glass dish.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 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 bulk of the salad and provides its crisp, fibrous texture.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness.
Eggs
Thicken the milk mixture as their proteins set with gentle heat.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the thickened egg sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the dressing a rounder, richer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cooking the milk and eggs until they begin to thicken. Egg proteins set with heat, so the mixture thickens gently at moderate heat. If it gets too hot or cooks too long, the eggs can scramble and turn grainy, so stop as soon as it starts to thicken.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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