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Cold Slaw Dressing

A dressing made by whisking egg yolks with flour, then adding boiling vinegar and cooking until it boils.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cold Slaw Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the egg yolks and flour together.

  2. Pour boiling vinegar over the egg yolk mixture.

  3. Let it come to a boil.

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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,652 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Egg yolks thicken the dressing as they cook, giving it a creamy body.
Flour
Flour stabilizes the yolk mixture so it thickens smoothly without curdling.
Vinegar
Vinegar adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the yolks.

The step that matters

Let it come to a boil. Egg yolks only thicken properly once heated, but overheating or curdling can make the dressing grainy. Bringing it to a boil while stirring gently helps the starch and yolk proteins set into a smooth, cohesive sauce.

“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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