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Salad

Slaw Dressing

A butter and vinegar dressing thickened with egg and flour, served over shredded cabbage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Slaw Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the vinegar.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg with the sugar, flour, mustard, and milk or cream.

  3. Combine the egg mixture with the vinegar and butter, and boil until thick.

  4. Let the dressing cool.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing over shredded cabbage and season with salt and pepper.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Thickens the dressing as it cooks and binds it into a creamy texture.
Flour
Helps thicken the dressing so it coats the cabbage rather than running off.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rounded mouthfeel in the dressing.

The step that matters

Boil the egg mixture until thick. The egg proteins set and thicken the dressing only when it is heated enough. Stir constantly so the egg does not scramble or curdle, and take it off the heat once it thickens.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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