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Hot Slaw

Hot Slaw is a warm cabbage dish dressed with a custard-like sauce of eggs, mustard, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Hot 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 ↓

Hot Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the cabbage

  1. Cook the cabbage in a small amount of water until tender, then drain well.

  2. Transfer the cabbage to an earthen dish and season with butter, salt, pepper, sugar, and vinegar.

  3. Place the cabbage in a warm oven to keep hot.

Make the custard dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, mustard or mayonnaise, sugar, cream or milk, and butter.

  2. Cook this mixture over boiling water until thickened like custard.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the cabbage or stir it in, keeping it hot until serving.

  2. Garnish with celery heads and curled parsley, and season with celery salt if desired.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 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 dish and softens to a tender, warm base when cooked.
Eggs
Thicken the dressing into a custard-like sauce as they set gently over heat.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the cabbage and dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, rich flavours of the eggs and butter.
Cream or fresh milk
Adds moisture and softness to the custard dressing.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg dressing over boiling water. Eggs set when heated gently; too much heat curdles them into lumps. Gentle, indirect heat keeps the custard smooth and thick.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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