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Cole-slaw

A cabbage salad dressed with a hot mustard and vinegar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cole-slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs in a bowl.

  2. In a saucepan, combine cream or rich milk, sugar, mustard, vinegar, celery seed, salt, cayenne pepper, and butter.

  3. Stir constantly over medium heat until the mixture boils.

Assemble and serve

  1. Finely chop the cabbage and place it in a serving bowl.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the cabbage and let it cool before serving.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks add richness and help thicken the dressing when heated.
Cream or rich milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the acidity of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the dressing a rounded, smooth mouthfeel.
Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the salad and supplies its crisp texture.

The step that matters

Stir constantly while the mixture heats. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly, so the dairy and egg mixture thickens without scorching on the base of the pan or curdling in hot spots.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chestnutfits about as well
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Lentilsfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, sugar, mustard, vinegar, celery, 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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