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Salad

Dressing for Cold Slaw—salad Dressing

A dressing for cold slaw made with vinegar, eggs, mustard, sugar, butter, salt, pepper, and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dressing for Cold Slaw—salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Mix the butter, salt, pepper, sugar, and mustard together, then add the beaten eggs last.

  2. Boil the vinegar and pour it over the mixture, stirring constantly.

  3. Return the mixture to the saucepan and boil for a few minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the slaw when it is 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook and add richness.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs and reboiling. Egg proteins thicken the dressing by setting as they heat. If the mixture gets too hot or boils hard after the eggs go in, they scramble into lumps. Stirring constantly keeps the heat even and the dressing smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits less well

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