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Shell of Cabbage Filled with Cold Slaw

A cabbage shell filled with cold slaw, garnished with pickled beet and parsley, served with fried oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 660 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Shell of Cabbage Filled with Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cut out the center of the cabbage to create a shell for the salad.

  2. If less salad is needed, cut a circle on top, remove the core, and keep the lower part intact for boiling later.

  3. Slice the removed cabbage finely and soak in cold water.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the cabbage shell on a napkin in the center of a hot platter.

  2. Wring out the moisture from the sliced cabbage using cheesecloth, then mix with salad dressing.

  3. Fill the cabbage shell with the salad and garnish with chopped pickled beet and a sprig of parsley.

  4. Arrange fried oysters around the edge of the platter and serve immediately.

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 + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together660 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + oystertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Cabbage + oystertop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the edible shell and, once sliced and wrung dry, the crisp base of the salad.
Salad dressing
Coats the shredded cabbage, adding moisture, flavor and richness to the salad.
Fried oysters
Add a crisp, rich contrast to the cool cabbage salad.

The step that matters

Wringing out the sliced cabbage. Cabbage holds a lot of water. If it is not wrung dry before dressing, the excess moisture thins the dressing and makes the salad soggy and watery in the shell.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, oyster):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, oyster. 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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