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Salad

Egg Slaw

A cabbage salad mixed with a boiled egg and vinegar dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Egg Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle chopped cabbage with salt and pepper.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine vinegar, sugar, mustard, and butter; bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg and cook for a few seconds until just set.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the cabbage and serve.

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. 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. Pepper + mustardtop 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 bulk of the dish and provides a crisp, fresh texture.
Egg
Thickens the hot dressing as it sets, giving it a creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a gentle sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the dressing smooth and rounds out its flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring in the beaten egg. Egg proteins set with gentle heat, so if the mixture boils too long after the egg goes in, it can curdle or turn grainy. Cook only until just set and remove from heat promptly.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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