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Salad

Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad with hard‑boiled egg yolks, butter, mustard, sugar, vinegar, and egg‑white garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. Chop the cabbage finely and place in a bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, mash the yolks of the hard boiled eggs into a paste.

  2. Add melted butter, dry mustard, sugar, and vinegar to the egg yolks and mix thoroughly.

Combine and garnish

  1. Combine the mixture with the chopped cabbage and mix well.

  2. Garnish with the egg whites cut into rings.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the slaw and provides crisp texture.
Egg yolks
Mashed into a paste, they bind the dressing and give it a rich, creamy body.
Melted butter
Adds fat, smoothing the dressing and carrying flavour across the cabbage.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and sharpens the cabbage.

The step that matters

Mixing the dressing before adding the cabbage. Blending the yolks with butter, mustard, sugar and vinegar until smooth prevents lumps and streaks, so the dressing coats the cabbage evenly rather than pooling.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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