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Dressing- for Cold Slaw

A creamy dressing made with eggs, cream, vinegar, butter, mustard, cayenne pepper, and salt for cold slaw.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the eggs well.

  2. Add the cream or sweet milk, vinegar, melted butter, mixed mustard, cayenne pepper, and salt.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the mixture like custard until thickened.

  2. Let it cool, then pour over the cabbage.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

  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
Set and thicken the dressing as they cook, giving it body like a custard.
Cream or sweet milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavor.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky texture.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp, savory flavor that balances the richness of the eggs and butter.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture like custard until thickened. Egg proteins set as they heat and thicken the dressing, but if the heat is too high they overcook and curdle into lumps. Cook gently and stir constantly until it coats a spoon.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, vinegar, 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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