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Salad

Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad dressed with a vinegar and spice vinaigrette.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 the cabbage

  1. Remove the outside leaves from the cabbage and cut it into quarters.

  2. Slice the cabbage very thinly with a sharp knife.

  3. Soak the sliced cabbage in cold water until crisp.

  4. Drain and dry between towels.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. Combine vinegar, cold water, bay leaf, peppercorns, mustard seed, and cloves in a saucepan.

  2. Cook slowly for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Pickle and serve

  1. Pour it over the drained cabbage.

  2. Let the cabbage stand for 2 hours.

  3. Drain again and serve with or without mayonnaise dressing.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Cabbage + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together933 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the crisp, shreddable base that the pickling liquid softens slightly and seasons.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the slaw its sharp, tangy flavour and helps preserve it.

The step that matters

Slicing the cabbage very thinly. Thin slices have more cut surface and less thick tissue, so they soak up the liquid evenly and stay crisp rather than tough or uneven.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, vinegar, mustard):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, vinegar, mustard. 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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