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Salad

Dressing for Cabbage and Celery

A vinaigrette-style dressing made with eggs, vinegar, mustard, butter, salt, cayenne pepper, and cream, served over chopped cabbage and celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Dressing for Cabbage and Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Stir in the vinegar, mustard, melted butter, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Place the mixture in a saucepan over boiling water and stir steadily until it thickens.

  4. Let the dressing cool, then add the cream.

Dress the vegetables

  1. Cut the cabbage and celery into small pieces.

  2. Mix the cabbage and celery well, then pour the dressing over them.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + cabbagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set over gentle heat, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the dressing.
Cream
Adds softness and mellows the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the eggs and butter.
Cabbage
Forms the crisp, bulky base of the salad that the dressing coats.

The step that matters

Thickening the egg mixture over boiling water. Eggs thicken as their proteins set with gentle heat. If the mixture gets too hot or is stirred too little, it can curdle or scramble, so stir steadily and keep the water at a simmer rather than a hard boil.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, mustard, butter, pepper, cream, celery. 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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