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Salad

Cole-slaw

A cabbage salad dressed with a boiled egg yolk, cream, mustard, vinegar, sugar, celery seed, salt, cayenne pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Cole-slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the cream or milk.

  2. Add sugar, mustard, vinegar, celery seed, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Stir in the butter and pour the mixture into a saucepan.

  4. Stir constantly until it boils.

Dress and serve

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the finely chopped cabbage.

  2. Let it stand until cold before serving.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the dressing into a creamy custard when gently heated.
Cream or rich milk
Adds richness and body, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that balances the sweetness and cuts the richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to offset the acidity of the vinegar and mustard.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, glossier dressing texture.
Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the slaw, absorbing the warm dressing as it stands.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until it boils. The egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated or left unstirred, so constant stirring keeps the custard smooth and thickened.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chestnutfits about as well
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Lentilsfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

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