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French Slaw

A fermented cabbage and vegetable salad dressed with vinegar, mustard, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

French Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the cabbage using a slaw cutter.

  2. Chop the onions, peppers, and celery finely.

  3. Sprinkle salt over the chopped vegetables and let sit overnight.

  4. The next morning, squeeze the vegetables dry.

Make the slaw

  1. Add the other ingredients and mix well.

  2. Boil the vinegar and sugar together, then pour over the mixture.

  3. Stir well and pack into jars.

  4. Cover tightly or seal.

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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the slaw and gives it its crisp, crunchy body.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the slaw and gives it its sharp flavour.
White sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Onions
Add pungent flavour and aroma that mellows during the overnight rest.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, savoury note.

The step that matters

Squeezing the vegetables dry. Salted vegetables release a lot of water overnight. If they are not squeezed well, the extra liquid dilutes the vinegar brine and leaves the slaw soggy and less stable in the jars.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, celery, pepper, vinegar, clove, ginger, horseradish):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, celery, pepper, vinegar, clove, ginger, horseradish. 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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