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Salad

Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad dressed with vinegar, mustard, butter, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Cold Slaw

Why it works: Cabbage and mustard 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 ↓

Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Dress the cabbage

  1. Mix the shredded cabbage with a French dressing, using twice the amount of vinegar.

  2. Alternatively, heat the vinegar with salt, sugar, mustard, pepper, and paprika.

Make the dressing

  1. While hot, stir in the creamed butter.

  2. Pour the creamed butter over the beaten egg yolks.

  3. Cook over hot water until the mixture thickens slightly.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the dressing with the cabbage while hot.

  2. Serve cold as a salad or with broiled fish or fried oysters.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + vinegartop 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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the salad and provides a crisp, sturdy texture.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that balances the richness of the dressing.
Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they gently set with heat, giving body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the dressing.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cook the egg yolk mixture over hot water until it thickens slightly. Egg yolk proteins set gently at moderate heat, which thickens the dressing smoothly. If the heat is too high or the cooking runs too long, the yolks overcook, turn grainy or scramble, and the dressing curdles.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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