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Salad

Cream Slaw

A cabbage and celery slaw dressed with sugar, vinegar, pepper, salt, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine chopped cabbage, sugar, chopped celery, pepper, vinegar, and salt. Mix well until the ingredients are evenly coated.

  2. Add cream gradually to moisten the slaw to your desired consistency.

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

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

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

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

  3. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the slaw and provides its crisp, crunchy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and cuts the richness of the cream.
Cream
Adds moisture and a rich, creamy coating to the slaw.

The step that matters

Adding the cream gradually. Cream can thin out and make the slaw watery if too much is added at once, and the cabbage releases liquid as it sits. Adding it a little at a time lets you reach the right consistency without overdoing it.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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