Skip to main content
Salad

Cold Slaw Dressing

A cold dressing for finely cut cabbage made with vinegar, celery seed, eggs, butter, mustard, pepper, salt, and olive oil or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cold Slaw Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing base

  1. In a tin cup, combine vinegar and celery seed, then place on the stove to boil.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the beaten eggs, butter, pepper, salt, and mustard.

  3. Once the vinegar boils, pour it slowly into the egg mixture while stirring quickly.

  4. Return the mixture to the heat for a few minutes, stirring to prevent curdling, then set aside to cool.

Finish

  1. When completely cool, add olive oil or thick cream.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs thicken the dressing as they cook gently, giving it a creamy body.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.
Olive oil or thick cream
Adds fat and body, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Returning the mixture to the heat. Eggs can curdle if overheated. Stirring constantly over gentle heat lets the egg proteins set smoothly, so the dressing stays creamy rather than grainy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes