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Salad

Hot Slaw

A cabbage slaw dressed with a hot mustard vinaigrette.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Hot Slaw

Why it works: Mustard and celery 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 ↓

Hot Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the eggs until light.

  2. Mix in the mustard, celery seed, turmeric, sugar, and cream or melted butter.

  3. Slowly pour in the boiling vinegar while stirring.

  4. Return the mixture to the heat and stir until it thickens to the consistency of cream.

Dress the cabbage

  1. Add the dressing to the chopped cabbage and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Mix well and keep closely covered.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Mustard + cabbagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  4. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Celery + cabbagetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set with heat, giving it a creamy body.
Boiling vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sugar and richness of the dressing.
Cream or melted butter
Adds fat that softens the dressing and gives it a smoother mouthfeel.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the sharp vinegar.
Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish, absorbing the warm dressing as it is tossed.

The step that matters

Return the mixture to the heat and stir until it thickens to the consistency of cream.. Egg proteins set as they heat, thickening the dressing. Heat that is too high or stirring too little can scramble the eggs into lumps, so keep the heat gentle and stir constantly.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, mustard, celery, turmeric, sugar, cream, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, celery, turmeric, sugar, cream, vinegar. 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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