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Cabbage Salad

A cabbage salad dressed with a milk, egg yolk, sugar, butter, and vinegar mixture.

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 cabbage

  1. Shave the cabbage finely.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Make the dressing

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until it boils.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolk with the sugar and butter.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the boiling milk.

  4. Let it come to a boil again, then add the vinegar.

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. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cabbage + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together133 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 bulk of the salad and provides the crisp texture.
Egg yolk
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, creamy dressing as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the dressing.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the milk. Egg yolk proteins can scramble if the hot milk is too hot or the egg is added too quickly. Stirring the egg mixture in steadily helps it thicken smoothly into a custard-like dressing.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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