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Salad

Cold Slaw

A cold cabbage salad dressed with a vinegar-based sauce and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Make the dressing

  1. Heat 1/2 cup of vinegar with salt, sugar, mustard, pepper, and paprika to make the dressing.

  2. Stir in the creamed butter while hot, then pour over the beaten egg yolks.

  3. Cook the mixture over hot water until it thickens slightly.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix the shredded cabbage with a French dressing, using twice the amount of vinegar.

  2. Mix the hot dressing with the cabbage.

  3. Serve cold as a salad or with broiled fish or fried oysters.

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

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

  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, bulky body of the salad that holds the dressing.
Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they cook gently and give it a rich, creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the butter and yolks.
Butter
Adds fat that smooths the dressing and gives it a rounded, mellow texture.

The step that matters

Cook the egg yolk mixture over hot water until it thickens slightly. Egg yolks set at gentle heat. If the heat is too high or the mixture is cooked too long, the yolks can scramble and turn grainy, so the dressing should be stirred and kept over hot water rather than direct heat.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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