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Salad

Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad dressed with a boiled egg and vinegar-based dressing.

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

Prepare

  1. Shred the cabbage and set aside.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine the egg, vinegar, milk, butter, mustard, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  2. Heat the mixture until it just begins to boil, then pour it over the cabbage.

  3. Do not cook the cabbage; cover the dish and let it sit.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 slaw and absorbs the warm dressing as it sits, softening slightly.
Egg
Thickens the warm dressing as it heats, giving it a creamy, body-rich texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the milk and butter.
Milk
Dilutes the vinegar and adds creaminess, mellowing the dressing's sharpness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel in the dressing.

The step that matters

Heat the dressing only until it just begins to boil. Egg proteins thicken with heat but curdle if overheated, so the mixture must be heated gently and stopped as soon as it just begins to boil. Overheating would leave the dressing grainy rather than smooth.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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