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Dessert

Cabbage Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette dressing made with egg yolks, sugar, mustard, butter, cornstarch, and vinegar, served over finely chopped cabbage.

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 Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, sugar, salt, mustard, melted butter, and cornstarch thoroughly.

  2. Stir this mixture rapidly into the boiling vinegar.

Dress and serve

  1. Chop the cabbage finely and sweeten and salt it.

  2. Pour the dressing over the cabbage and let it sit for 30 minutes before serving.

  3. Garnish with slices of hard boiled egg and sprigs of parsley.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  5. Vinegar + cabbagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing and add richness as they set with the hot vinegar.
Cornstarch
Thickens the dressing so it coats the cabbage instead of running off.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing and balances the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture into the boiling vinegar. Adding the egg and starch mixture too slowly or without stirring can leave lumps or scrambled egg bits. Stirring rapidly disperses the yolks and starch so the dressing thickens smoothly as it heats.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

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