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Salad

Cabbage Salad

A cabbage salad dressed with a creamy mustard vinaigrette.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and cabbage 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

Make the dressing

  1. Bring vinegar and water to a boil.

  2. Mix dry ingredients and moisten with a little cold water.

  3. Cook until thick, then add butter and remove from heat.

  4. Stir in the beaten egg and let cool.

  5. Add whipped cream to the mixture.

Assemble

  1. Scoop out the cabbage head, saving the top.

  2. Shred the cabbage and mix with the dressing.

  3. Refill the cabbage shell with the mixture and replace the top if desired.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thickens the dressing as it cooks and adds richness.
Flour
Thickens the dressing when cooked with the liquid.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and a light, creamy texture to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Cabbage
Provides the crisp, shredded base for the salad.

The step that matters

Cook until thick, then add butter and remove from heat. The flour and egg must cook long enough to thicken the dressing fully, but overheating can curdle the egg. Removing from heat before adding the butter and cream keeps the dressing smooth.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, butter, flour, egg, mustard, cream. 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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