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Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad dressed with a vinegar and butter sauce thickened with flour and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cold Slaw

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Sift the flour into the milk or cream and stir until smooth.

  2. Beat the egg yolks in a separate bowl.

  3. In a saucepan, heat the vinegar with the butter until just boiling.

  4. Strain the flour and milk mixture into the boiling vinegar, stirring vigorously.

Dress and chill

  1. Pour the mixture over the chopped cabbage and refrigerate until cold.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + cabbagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Thickens the dressing as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Milk or cream
Adds body and richness, softening the sharp vinegar.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the slaw its tang.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Cabbage
Forms the main body of the slaw, holding the dressing on its surface.

The step that matters

Strain the flour and milk into the boiling vinegar while stirring vigorously. Flour starch clumps when it meets hot liquid unevenly. Stirring hard while pouring disperses the starch so it thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, vinegar, butter. 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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