Skip to main content
Main

Hot Slaw

A hot cabbage slaw dressed with vinegar, cream, egg, butter, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Hot Slaw

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Hot Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cabbage finely.

  2. In a bowl, mix vinegar, cream, egg, butter, salt, and sugar.

  3. Pour the dressing over the cabbage.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the mixture in a covered kettle on the stove.

  2. Heat until it comes to a boil.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + cabbagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 softens as it heats in the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, rich dressing.
Cream
Adds fat and body, giving the dressing a smooth, rich texture.
Egg
Thickens the warm dressing as it cooks, helping it coat the cabbage.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Heating the dressing with the cabbage. The egg-and-cream dressing can curdle or turn grainy if it gets too hot too fast. Heating gently while stirring keeps the egg proteins smooth, so the dressing thickens evenly rather than scrambling.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, cream, egg, butter, 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.

More hot slaw recipes

Dressing 3 See all 87 →

You might also like

Red CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipesCabbage DressingCabbage Dressing19 recipes