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Salad

Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad dressed with cream, vinegar, salt, pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cold Slaw

Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice or chop the cabbage finely and place it in a vegetable dish in layers.

  2. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper on each layer.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the cream and sugar until sweetened.

  2. Stir in the vinegar briskly.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the cabbage just before serving.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 the crisp, fresh texture.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smooth body to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing and offsets the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Stir in the vinegar briskly. Vinegar added to cream can cause it to thicken or curdle if it is not mixed in quickly and evenly. Brisk stirring disperses the acid before the proteins in the cream can clump together, keeping the dressing smooth.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cream, vinegar, sugar. 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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